Out of My Mind

Suddenly Southern

2007-03-06T15:51:00.000-05:00

Not sure where he picked it up, but Sebastian seems to have picked up a bit of a southern accent recently. I've noticed in the last few weeks that a lot of his long "i" sounds now sound like "ah." "My" almost always comes out as "ma" and "time" is now "tahme." There are others, but those are the two that stick out most in my mind. Like I said, not sure where this is coming from. He doesn't know anybody with a southern accent. But it's really cute when he does it.

Here we go again!

2007-03-05T09:04:00.000-05:00

The hubby has another job interview on Thursday. This time, it's with his best friend's company in a cusotmer service position. He's pretty sure he'll get the job, but there are a lot of pro's and con's.

Pro's:

It's a Monday through Friday, 8-5 kind of job
He can carpool with Tony, which would save us a ton on gas money
He'd finally be away from a boss he cannot stand
Great insurance at a great price
I could get a job on evenings and weekends because of the set schedule
The set schedule would make it easier for him with his Master's classes

Con's:

He may have to take a cut in pay
Still not a human resources position, although maybe he could work his way into one
He'd be leaving a company that he's worked for for the last 5 years
He'd lose two weeks of vacation pay which would have come due on March 30

When I write it out, the pro's do seem to outweigh the con's. And if he did take a cut in pay, if I can get a job, it would more than make up the difference in pay, even if I only worked 25-30 hours a week. Again, there is no guarantee that I would get a job right away, but I think there is a better chance since my hours would be more flexible. Actually, if the hubby carpools, we could put Seb into latchkey after school, which would broaden my availability even more. I don't know. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how the interview goes.

Trying to keep busy

2007-02-28T15:02:00.000-05:00

In an effort to keep myself from gobbling up the chocolate brownie muffin that is currently screaming at me from the kitchen, I am doing whatever I can to keep busy. Hence the second blog entry of the day. I've already cleaned the kitchen, searched through rubbermaid tubs looking for crib sheets for Lucas and straightened up the 45667856468789463548 pieces of paper that Sebastian generates simply by being a first grader.

So I figured if I can't eat yummy, delicious food, I would write about it. Sebastian's birthday is next friday and I am working on the menu for the party. This is what I have come up with so far...

cake and ice cream...duh
crab dip and Triscuit crackers
shrimp and coctail sauce
ham roll ups
hot wings
veggies and dip
cheesy hashbrowns
tuna macaroni salad
juice and soda

I walked through Gordon Food Service earlier today to try and get some ideas. They had sweet and sour mini meatballs, but Yvonne apparently did those for the girls' birthday party, and I don't want to have everything completely the same. So I am still trying to figure out something a little more meaty and substancial. I haven't seen anything yet on any of my favorite food websites, but the hubby is off tomorrow, so maybe he can help me find something.

Speaking of Sebastian's birthday, I was able to go out and get the bulk of his gifts done yesterday while he was on a playdate. I got him two of the Imaginext dinos he has been wanting, the Allosaurus and the Triceratops http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=2700&e=thumbnail&pcat=Imaginext_Dino. We can't seem to find the pterodactyl, so I've put the word out to my parents to pick it up if they see it. I also got him the Magnetix Triceratops and a Bionacle toy he was asking for. I still need to pick up the new Land Before Time movie. And I want to take a look at the Discovery Store at the mall tomorrow and see what they have. There were a few things he wanted at Christmas that we weren't able to get, so we'll see. I know, the kid is spoiled. But it is so much fun!

Random stuff

2007-02-28T13:45:00.000-05:00

I'm three for three! Three days in a row working out. Usually, I find some excuse to skip a day in between workouts, but I am determined this time. The hubby even came out while I was using my exercise ball this morning, so at least he knows I'm not lying about exercising. But, good lord, I'm so tired and sore!

The hubby has a busy day at work today. He gets his formal review and should find out about his raise. He should also find out if he is going to be allowed to transfer to the Novi store, which would be so nice. It would save us about $200 a month in gas. But his boss is a big dink and probably won't let him go. Still, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he can get out of that store. I really wish we had been able to find a way to get the heck out of Michigan because the job situation here is supremely sucktacular, but we just couldn't manage it. So we just keep hoping that something good will turn up soon.

And for some interesting family news, well, let's just say that my title of "the Golden Child" is in no danger whatsoever. It seems that not one, but two people from my family had a run in with the policia this past weekend. Kelly's boyfriend, Michael, got picked up on very early Saturday morning for outstanding warrents. They knew about them, so I guess it's not that big of a deal and he had to spend the night in jail. And then around 2:30 Sunday morning, my parents got a call from my little brother's girlfriend, asking if they could come pick her up from the 7-11. It seems my little bro got picked up for possesion of marijuana. Uh, D'oh, what was he thinking??!! So Ryan also got to spend a night in jail and now he has a restricted license so he can only drive back and forth to work. I'm a little surprised my parents haven't started drinking!

Take that, stupid 3 pounds!

2007-02-27T10:43:00.000-05:00

My weight gain was starting to depress me a bit, so I am fighting back. I did 30 minutes on the Gazelle yesterday and another 30 this morning with the exercise ball. I'm drinking a lot of water and bought some good stuff at the grocery store last night. It just seems so silly to just let myself slide after working so hard to get rid of the first 50 pounds. So I had a bit of a relapse, but that's it. Time to dig in and get back with the program. And as much as I hate to admit it, I really do feel better when I exercise.

The hubby and I have been talking about possibly going back to Disney World this October, so that provides me with some extra motivation. I saw some really cute bathing suits at Kohl's this past weekend and I am determined to get back into a suit so I can swim with my child the next time we go to Disney. I'm sure I'll never wear an itty-bitty bikini again, but a nice tank or even a tankini isn't out of the question. I thought about buying one and hanging it up on the wall like that yogurt commercial, but I just can't make myself do it.

pizza face

2007-02-26T13:46:00.000-05:00

Adult acne really sucks. I never had problems with zits as a teenager, much to the dismay of some of my friends. But now, my face looks like it has exploded. Part of it is due to the fact that I just spent a week at my parents house and the water there always does weird stuff to my skin and hair. And I'm sure the fact that I have been eating so crappy has something to do with it as well. I'm going to pick up some good face scrubby stuff while I'm shopping tonight, so hopefully, that will help. I would say that it can't get much worse, but I don't want to press my luck.

Home again

2007-02-25T13:03:00.000-05:00

After staying at my parent's house for 8 days, my mom and dad brought Bub and I home yesterday. I do like visiting them, but it's always nice to get back home.

We had a nice visit. We did some shopping and on Tuesday, we took Lucas to the neurologist. The bleeder in his head has closed up, but the doctor made him get a blood draw for a chromosome analysis. He said he doesn't have a nasal bridge, but I'm not sure what exactly he is looking for. I think if he had down's, the other facial symptoms would already be obvious, and there aren't any. The doctor kept asking Kelly and my mom who the baby looked like, Kelly or Michael. I think he looks more like Michael, who is hispanic, and who the doctor has never seen. I honestly didn't see anything wrong with his nose. It looks like every other baby's nose, just a cute little nub. They'll have the results of the analysis in about 16 days, so I guess we'll find out what, if anything, is wrong then.

I got my hair cut while I was there, too. I don't really care for it. She went shorter than I really wanted, but she cut out all my old color and dead stuff, so it's really healthy. I guess that just means it will grow out faster. She always did such a great job when my hair was really short that I didn't feel any qualms about trusting her expertise. I guess now I know to bring a photo of exactly what I want next time I go. The hubby says I look like a bucket head, whatever that means. Isn't he sweet?

I also did some party planning for Bubba's birthday while I was there. My dad is going to bring his yummy hot wings and my mom is going to make ham roll-ups, also yummy. I've decided to just do a bunch a snack and salad type foods and then have cake and ice cream. I need to get to Gordon Food Service this week and see what they have in the way of finger foods. The big question is how am I going to fit 20 people into my teeny tiny apartment? Should be interesting!

I was a very bad girl food-wise while I stayed at my parents. I gained 3.5 pounds while I was there! I'm thinking all the paczkis I ate really contributed to the weight gain. Plus I drank soda and juice, snacked on potato chips and ate second helpings at dinner too many times. Also, we had Olive Garden, Big Boy, Arby's and McDonalds while I was there. Then, we ordered pizza last night while my parents were here. So not looking forward to all the time I'm going to have to spend with my exercise ball to work off all the junk I put into my body. Not gonna be fun.

Sebastian actually lost another pound. And I know that he's gone through a growth spurt recently, too. His legs are just getting so long. He's built just like his Papa, long and lean. He's getting to be such a skinny minny. We have to buy slims for his pants now. It used to be that he couldn't wear anything without an elastic waist because he had such a round little belly. Now, everything just bags on him. I keep trying to get him to try new foods, but it just ain't happening.

Not much else happened while we were there. I watched a lot of t.v. because my parents have Dish. Sebastian was in heaven! All those cartoons! We also talked about Grandma Ski a lot, which was nice. Her birthday would have been on Thursday, which was sad, but we got through it.

Out of the mouth of a first grader.

2007-02-15T16:45:00.000-05:00

We had a snow day yesterday, so Sebastian's Valentine's Day party was postponed until today. During the party, one of the little boys in Seb's class came up to me and this is what he said:

"One time, I was watching the Tyra Show and there was this woman, and she was really fat, like she couldn't leave her house because she was so fat, but I thought she was really, really pretty, and I think you look just like her."

Hmmm. I do believe that is what you call a backhanded compliment. He thinks I'm pretty, but he also thinks I'm really, really fat. I just smiled and said thank you.

I love my kid

2007-02-14T15:58:00.000-05:00

We have a snow day today, so Sebastian is home with me. He walked into the living room while I was exercising and said, "Wow, Mom! Your stomach looks smaller already!" You can't get much better motivation than that!!

Now if I can just stay away from the stinkin Valentine's Day candy!

Don't wanna do it!

2007-02-14T14:02:00.000-05:00

Normally, when I exercise, I try and get it done and out of the way in the morning. But the hubby didn't have to leave for work until 1:00 and I don't like to do it in front of him. And then I had to watch Days of Our Lives. Don't ask me why, because it's gotten so stupid. Force of habit, I guess.

So I'm sitting here procrastinating. It's what I'm good at. But seeing as Bub and I are going to leave Friday to stay with my parents for a week or so, I really want to get a few more sessions with the exercise ball in. It's actually starting to get easier. It's still hard, but I don't have to stop in the middle of the routine anymore because I feel like I'm going to throw up.

I just wish the weather would clear up so I could start walking again. That seemed to make the biggest difference and it was so friggin easy! I just dropped Bub off at the bus stop and then walked around our apartment complex for 35-45 minutes. My future plan, once the weather eventually clears, is to walk three days a week, do the ball three days a week, then one day off. At least, that's the plan. Hopefully I can stick to it. But until then, it's just me and my big yellow exercise ball. Meh.

A productive morning

2007-02-12T11:36:00.000-05:00

In the last three hours, I have dropped Bubba at the bus stop, made chili and got it going in the crock pot, cleaned the kitchen, paid bills and did a thirty minute workout with my exercise ball. And still had time to check out my favorite mommy site. It's a good day!

Good news and bad news

2007-02-10T10:20:00.000-05:00

The good news first! The hubby got accepted to grad school and will start taking classes next month! Woohoo! He was offered some financial aid, which should cover just about everything. He's going for his MBA, emphasis in Human Resources (I think that's how you say it!). He's going to start off with two classes, probably taking one online and the other on campus. If he takes two classes each semester, he should be able to finish up in about two years. We are all very proud and excited for him!

And now for the not so good news. On Tuesday, Sebastian had the day off of school because of the weather and the hubby had the day off of work. The hubby's sister is up visiting from Oklahoma, so we drove over to his brother's house for a nice family visit. We also saw the hubby's mom that day and she does not look good, not at all. She had cataract surgery that morning, so she had a big patch over her left eye and her right eye was very watery and bloodshot. She has lost a bunch of hair, which I think might be due to the dialysis. She finally has the cast off her one leg, but now has a really nasty sore on her other foot that is oozing and nasty looking. When she was getting ready to leave, she was in tears trying to get her foot into her boot, that is how much pain she was in. She just looks so frail and is in a lot of pain.

I talked to my sister-in-law last night and made the comment that she really seems to have gone downhill since we last saw her. Such a big change in just six weeks. We both said that we don't think she will make it through to the end of the year. We're not trying to be morbid or pessimistic, but her poor body just seems to be shutting down. She has been through so much healthwise the last few years, I just don't think her body can take much more. The hubby hasn't said much about it, other than she really looks bad, but I think he realizes what is going on as well. It's just not a good situation.

Finally, some good news

2007-02-04T14:47:00.000-05:00

After a really crappy week, we got some good news. We filed our taxes last weekend and are getting quite a bit less back than we have in the last few years. On Friday, the hubby got some paperwork in the mail about interest on his student loans. He didn't think he was going to have any, so he didn't bother to check before he filed. But it turns out that quite a bit had been paid, so he had to amend our tax return. We're getting another $300 bucks back. Nice! And very much needed!!

Craptacular

2007-02-02T15:03:00.000-05:00

I think that word pretty much sums up this past week. My sister went into the hospital on Monday evening. She didn't realize that she had gotten bit on the back of the neck by a spider last week. She thought it was a pimple, picked at it and it got infected. Her whole neck was swollen, she had a horrible headache and just felt like crap. They lanced the bite area and have been cleaning it out, but it's still oozing (Yuck!). The surgeon wants to wait until the puss and oozing is all gone before he decides if he needs to go in and finish cleaning out the area surgically.

So, the hubby and I went and picked up my nephew, Lucas, on Tuesday morning and kept him overnight. He was really good, but I think I only got about 2 hours of sleep. I'm still recouperating. I forgotten how much those twice a night feedings and diaper changes can really take it out of you! My parents picked Lucas up on Wednesday and he's staying with them for the time being. I guess it all depends on how long Kelly is in the hospital.

Then, yesterday, we took the truck in for a routine oil change. As we are sitting in the waiting area, the service manager comes out and said that they found a problem. Something about some rack is cracked which is causing a coolant leak, and it is going to cost about $700 to fix. Luckily, when we leased the truck, we got the super-duper, bumper-to-bumper, Gold Plus warranty. Unfortunately, they had no record of any warranty on file, so we had to go home, dig out all the paperwork, and making some phone calls before we got everything straightened out. We only ended up having to pay the deductible, which was $100. Still not fun, but a lot better than $700.

I'm really hoping the last two days of this week go a lot better than the first few.

Ouch!

2007-01-29T14:08:00.000-05:00

On Friday, I bought one of those exercise balls. I used it for the very first time today. Let me just say, ouch does not even begin to cover it. Right now, just my arms and legs are bothering me, but I imagine when I wake up tomorrow, all those lovely "core" muscles are going to be killing me.

The workout itself wasn't so bad. It is a bunch of different exercises for the first fifteen minutes, then you repeat them all to complete the circuit. I did all the exercises the first time around, and all but one the second time. Stupid back leg lunges with a high sweep of the ball.

Acutally, as I am sitting here, my back is starting to hurt a little bit as well. I hope I can walk when I wake up tomorrow.

Miss you, Grandma Ski

2007-01-28T13:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my grandma's memorial service. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I cried, just like I knew I would, but I wasn't a hysterical idiot like I feared I might be. Actually, if I hadn't looked over and see my sister lose it, I probably would have been okay, just a little teary. Sebastian did well. I sat in the front row with my parents and siblings, and the hubby and Bub were in the row behind. Hubby said Seb's eyes got a little red and he snuggled up into his neck (which made the hubby a little teary), but other than that, he was okay. Seb was very well behaved, which is more than I can say about some of my cousins' children.

There was a non-denominational chaplain who led the service. He had a very bad lisp and Sebastian said it sounded like he was talking with food in his mouth. Leave it to my little guy to come up with the comic relief during a sad situation. The chaplain also sang "Amazing Grace" at the end of the service. Even with his lisp, he had a pretty nice voice, but he felt the need to add some "extras" here and there, like "Oh Lord, I can see now!" complete with Christina Aguilera-type runs,throughout the song. It made me want to giggle, which would have been very inappropriate, but I think Grandma would have understood. Hell, she would have laughed right along with me.

We had a nice luncheon afterwards, then went to my parents for a few hours. My mom, sister and I talked about Grandma some, which helped. I had some questions about her last few days, but didn't want to ask my mom yet, in case it was too hard to talk about. But she described how the last two days went, and I got the answers that I needed.

Mom is doing okay right now, but Grandma's 85th birthday would have been on February 22, which is going to be hard. Sebastian has that week off for mid-winter break, so I think he and I will go stay with my parents that week. Mom actually has the first part of that week off as well, so the timing is good. And I think having Sebastian around will help give her something else to focus on. I think maybe we'll order her some flowers to be delivered on that day as well.

I still find myself getting teary at odd moments. And I never noticed how many women wear White Diamonds perfume. Every time I smell it, it always sets me off. But I guess that's normal.

And the report card says...

2007-01-26T18:02:00.000-05:00

Sebastian is doing much better this marking period! He is still doing great academically, but his behavior has really, really improved. His teacher said she can see he is working hard to behave and follow the classroom rules. She even said he is a pleasure to have in class!

This is a huge change from last marking period when she said that if his behavior didn't improve, we would have to set up an S3 meeting with his teacher, principal and counselor. We've been letting play with some of his school friends once or twice a week after school, and I think being around kids his own age has helped. His teacher has also been sending home a daily note, which also helped.

The hubby is still at work, so he hasn't seen the report card yet. But I am so proud! And even better, Sebastian is really proud of himself. And he got his television priviliges back. He watched a whole hour of PBS today and couldn't be happier.

So I guess I have to revise my earlier statement about it being a bad day. Turned out to be a great day!

Gonna be one of those days

2007-01-26T10:30:00.000-05:00

I can tell already, at 10:29 in the morning. The stupid frickin brownies I made for tomorrow didn't turn out, at all, which makes me skeptical about the chocolate sugar cookies since the recipe came from the same site. I dropped a box of baking soda all over my kitchen floor. I seem to be getting a cold, since I've been sneezing and blowing my nose all gosh darn morning. And we are under a winter weather advisory and it is snowing like crazy right now. Gonna make travelling just lovely tomorrow. Bleh.

So proud of the hubby!

2007-01-26T09:28:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, the hubby applied for grad school. He is going for his Master's degree in Human Resources. He is nervous and excited and I am very happy for him. Because of the H.R. core of classes that he took at Western, he'll only have to take 12 classes now. And, it looks like they are all available online, which will make things so much easier. He was kind of waffling on whether he should do it now or not because there is still the possibility that his current employer *might* move him into HR soon. But he has 12 months to enroll in classes from the time he gets accepted (which I have no doubt he will be accepted), so I told him it would be better just to apply. He'll have a few months in case he does get promoted before classes start if he begins in the spring. And if he ends up not going, well, we're only out fifty bucks. But better to have the application in and ready if he chooses to go.

Also, he asked me if I was upset that he was going back before I do, which I thought was kind of sweet. Although I can't wait to go back to school, it doesn't bother me that he is going back before I do. It will help his career so much. But he doesn't really care for school and I am such a big nerd, I love it. So it was sweet that he was worried about my feelings.

Then there is still the issue of me still not knowing exactly what I want to go back for. The two things I'm really leaning towards are Library Science or ESL, but I haven't decided between the two. There are schools near here that have both Master's programs. Wayne State has Library Science and EMU has ESL. I'm pretty sure that I'm leaning more toward Library Science, either as a reference or children's librarian. The only problem there, is that Wayne State is right in Detroit, and all the classes are in the evening. I really don't want to be in the middle of Detroit at night. Scary stuff right there!

But now that the hubby is really moving forward with his career, I guess it is time for me to really sit down and figure out what I want to do with my life. It's pretty said that I'm nearly 30 (ack!) and still haven't figured out what I want to be when I grow up.

Sebastian's resolutions

2007-01-24T16:52:00.000-05:00

In Sebastian's backpack today, there was a paper with his New Year's Resolutions. I had to giggle when I read them. It said:

To exersize, try new foods and pay utenchen and be good at school.

I wish I had a scanner to show the whole thing. It's so cute in his little handwriting. He did pretty well with his spelling, too. Boy, I hope he's serious about trying new foods. His picky eating habits are making me crazy! We keep telling him that he's going to be seven soon, and "they" say that people's tastes change every seven years, so he really should start trying some new things, or retrying some of the things he used to eat but refuses to try now. It would certainly make mealtime much easier on all of us!

still holding out hope

2007-01-23T19:42:00.000-05:00

So, the hubby had his interview today, and he said it went really well. Although they have filled the position he was initially interviewing for, he will now be considered if something opens up in the near future. We'll see. The set schedule would be nice, allowing me to finally try and start working as well.

He also talked with another one of his managers about moving into HR with his current company. It seems like everybody knows "somebody" that can get the ball rolling, and everything starts looking good for a while, but then things just peter out. He's just getting so frustrated. I really, really hope that something good happens soon.

I can't believe I forgot!

2007-01-22T09:58:00.000-05:00

I just looked through some of my previous posts and can't believe that I forgot to mention my nephew! Lucas Michael was born on September 25, seven and a half weeks early! He was just under 5 pounds, so the doctors said if my sister had gone full term, he would have been a big baby! He was in the hospital for about 3 weeks, was out for about a week and a half, then got really sick and had to be re-hospitalized. At first, they thought he had whooping cough, which was very scary. It turned out to be something different, though similar to whooping cough, so he was treated in basically the same manner. Also, he was having a lot of problems with apnea, which I understand is very common with premies. But he is doing wonderful now, getting big and chubby and for the last 2 weeks or so, he has been quite the little jabber jaws, cooing at the light,the couch, my sister, pretty much what ever is in front of his face.

Sebastian is totally in love with him. Whenever we see the baby, he is just all over him. He talks about him and in school he writes about him in his writer's workshop. It's really cute!

And I am really happy to say that Lucas has been so good for my sister. She doesn't drink or smoke anymore. She seems to have really gotten her diabetes under control as well. My mom and I were talking the other day about how she hasn't been hospitalized for it for over a year now. Previously, she would end up in the hospital every few months because she would let her sugar get so out of control. He is just her whole world and it is wonderful to see her making some positive changes in her life.

I'm baaaaack!

2007-01-22T09:05:00.000-05:00

It's a new year and there have been many big changes in the last few months!

The biggest change is that we moved from Kalamazoo to Novi at the end of August. It's nice because we are now 2 hours closer to our families, but still have that hour "buffer" between us and them. We don't have to worry about the dreaded drop-in because nobody is going to drive an hour on the chance that we might not be home. And my dad works about 20 minutes from here, so he has stopped in after work a few times to drop things off for Sebastian, which is nice.

Speaking of Sebastian, he (obviously) started first grade at a new school. It has been a little rougher than we had anticipated. He's had some problems adjusting and has had some behavioral issues. He was doing good at first, but towards the end of October, his behavior just got out of control. At his first conference, his teacher told me he was doing things like screaming and doing somersaults during a school assembly while the principal was talking, taking his shirt off in class, going into the bathroom and just screaming his head off, not listening in class, the lunchroom or at recess and was having problems getting along with the other students. It was horrible! And shocking to me because that doesn't sound anything like my little guy. But we've been working with him, his teacher and the school counselor and things have really improved. He gets his next report card this Friday, and I think it is going to be a lot better than the first one.

The hubby is still with the same company, just a different store. He still hates it and is trying to find another job because he is having no luck moving into Human Resources within the company his is with currently. He does have an interview tomorrow, but we've heard through the grapevine that the position for which he is going for has already been filled, so we're just keeping our fingers crossed that they might have another position, perhaps in a different capacity, available for him.

On a very sad note, we lost Grandma Ski this past Monday. It was somewhat unexpected. She had really begun to slip mentally, but as I understood, her physical health wasn't that bad. I also hadn't seen her in about two and a half months, which makes me feel like a big schmuck. I had the opportunity to go visit her at the nursing on Christmas, but I let time get away from me and didn't end up going, for which I now feel really guilty. She was supposed to come to my parent's house that day, but after my dad and brother got her into the van, she changed her mind and told them to take her back in to the nursing home. Her 85th birthday would have been one month from today, and I rationalized that I would see her then, but now I won't. Sebastian seems to be doing totally fine with it all, even though he and Grandma Ski were quite close. Her memorial is this weekend, so I guess we'll see how he does there.

And just so I don't end on a sad note, I have now lost 50 pounds since October of 2005. Woohoo! Of course, I gained 2.5 of them back over the holidays due to lack of exercise and too many holiday cookies, but I plan on fixing that shortly. I really want to be able to get into a bathing suit this summer. My goal is to lose another 55-60 pounds. I recently went shopping with a gift card from my mom from Christmas and was very surprised with the sizes I was able to buy. I am down 3 pant sizes and 4 shirt sizes from when I was at my heaviest. It was very good inspiration to keep on losing the weight.

So, now that we finally can get back online from home again, I'm going to try and be better about posting here. With everything that's been going on since the move, I really missed my blog!

2006-07-26T13:41:00.000-04:00

So, I haven't been as good at updating as I promised. Oh well. I'm still kind of in that anit-computer groove. But here's a little update of what has been going on lately.

My mother-in-law is still in the hospital. They now think she has some kind of an infection in her blood and she is broken out in weird spots all over her body. Somebody from the Center for Disease Control came last week to check her out and, so far, I haven't heard what they think might be going on. Things are not looking good.

I'm still apartment hunting, which is proving to be difficult because I'm not quite sure where we are ultimately going to end up. The hubby has put in for some transfers and now we are just waiting to see which store wants him. We did get some disappointing news yesterday. The hubby had interviewed for a fantabulous H.R. position in Canton last week, but didn't get the job. We were pretty sure he wasn't going to be offered the position based on the interview, but I still held out a little hope until the rejection letter arrived yesterday. So, we are disappointed because it would have been the perfect job. But hopefully, something better will come along.

My older sister had an ultrasound last week. She is having a boy! Yay, another nephew!!! So far, everything looks good and she is due in mid-November. She hasn't stopped smoking, although she says she has cut back. I wasn't too pleased to hear that, but there's not much I can do about it. I'm still hoping that this baby will be her turning point.

Sebastian lost another tooth and has three others that are loose. His attitude is still driving me crazy. Who knew 6 year olds could be so sassy and defiant. He lost television and video game privilages for three days last week as a result of his attitude. Is it bad that I am already looking forward to school starting back up in a month? It'll be a big difference for us all when he is there all day. I foresee some interesting times in our futures!

Big news for me, I am back on my diet and have been exercising every day for the last 2.5 weeks. I either do the Gazelle for thirty minutes or go rollerblading for a mile to a mile and a half each day. The hubby is just in amazement that i am actually exercising. I hate to exercise. Sebastian like it though, because when I rollerblade, we all go out as a family. He rides his bike, the hubby jogs and I rollerblade while trying very hard not to fall. So far, I have been successful, although there have been a few times I really thought I was going to end up either on my face or my rear. So far, so good. We have a wedding to go to on September 8, hence the sudden fitness frenzy. Yes, I am that vain that I really do not want to go looking like a humongously fat slob.

So that is what is happening around here. We are hoping to get some good news soon. Like the hubby's mom is doing better or he is offered a great job with a huge increase in pay. That would be nice.

Apartment hunting sucks

2006-07-11T12:45:00.000-04:00

Especially when you are trying to do it from across the state, can't go see the places in person, and have to rely on what you find on the web and what the apartment managers tell you. I have pretty much been glued to the computer for the last few days, trying to find a place with a good location, amenities that we want and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Not fun. I think I have found a place though, and am currently waiting for the applications and brochures to come in the mail.

I have been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately, I think because of the prospect of moving. I lay in bed wondering how we are going to be able to afford to move across state, how are we going to manage with one vehicle until we can manage to get another one, how can we afford another vehicle, how is Sebastian going to adjust to moving, being at a new school, going to school all day, will I be able to find a job... the list goes on and on. Of course, the hubby keeps telling me not to worry. Things always have a way of working themselves out, but how can I not worry? And all of this on top of his mom still being in the hopspital, me worrying about my sister. Gah, no wonder I can't sleep.

Erm, scratch that

2006-06-29T10:20:00.000-04:00

Apparently I spoke in haste yesterday when I said that my Mother-in-law was at home, healing nicely and doing well. My sister-in-law called last night to let us know that she is back in the hospital, again. She has been feeling extremely weak and is having a hard time moving around, due to loss of muscle strength. They think the muscles are deteriorating because of the affects of the her diabetes. I'm sure there is more, but since the I didn't talk to my SIL myself, I probably only got half the story. And, like always, hubby's parents waited a few days for it to get really bad before letting the doctor know what was going on. *Insert giant eyeroll here*

According to my sister-in-law, she probably isn't going to be getting out soon, and when she does, they probably won't release her to go home but only to a nursing home or some other kind of care facility. Which is a good thing, in my own humble opinion. They obviously cannot take care of themselves on their own if they are going to continue to ignore their health problems until it is nearly too late. Now, I understand why they do this. Mom does not want to be stuck in the hospital, but for the love of Pete, she can't let that fear stop her from telling her doctor what is going on! That's how we nearly lost her last time. It is just so frustrating.

I am such a slacker!

2006-06-28T09:13:00.000-04:00

It's been nearly 3.5 months since I last posted an entry here. And it's not like there hasn't been anything to post about because the last few months have been crazy busy. I've just been feeling kind of anti-computer lately. I've even been slacking off at the mommie site that I frequent as well as my email. Plus, our computer had developed a major case of PMS or something because it has been really tempermental for the last week or so. But as it is finally working like normal again, I'm feelin' in the mood to write. So here we go!

The big news...Sebastian graduated from kindergarten a few weeks back. It was a very cute little ceremony and I didn't cry until we were in the truck on the way home. Yay, go me! The only bad part was that the hubby had to work and couldn't come. He always closes on Mondays, but one of the other supervisors was on vacation, so he was coverage that day. I took pictures and video, which turned out really cute, but since his entire class is featured, I don't think I should post them here. Sorry!

Hubby is still job hunting. As of now, it doesn't look like the whole Oregon thing is going to work out, at least at this time. The worst thing is that we think his Human Resource guy is playing games, not only with hubby, but a few other people at his work as well. P has had 4 really great phone interviews with stores in Oregon and while they sounded so promising when he hung up, one pretty much saying that it was really only a formality that he had to talk to the H.R. guy, then afterwards, all would say that they've decided not to offer him an ASM position after talking to H.R. Now, hubby, along with many others in his store, has had his problems with this man in the past because he is just, well, inept at his job. But this is really pissing us off. He is messing with our future! So not cool. But hubby has some of the higher-ups looking into things, so hopefully things will be resolved and this guy hasn't screwed things up to the point of no repair. We'll have to wait and see, but it looks like we may be staying in Michigan. Yes, my parents are so depressed to hear that. I could practically hear them jumping for joy when I told them over the phone the other day. Hopefully, things will be resolved soon. I hate waiting!!

The other big thing we have been dealing with is hubby's mom. She has been in and out of the hospital so much the last few months. We had make a trip home at the end of May because the doctors didn't think she was going to make it. It was really looking bad for a while there. She was in kidney failure and conjestive heart failure (due to the kidney problems). All a result of her diabetes. The doctors were finally able to get her stable enough to do dialysis, which seems to have done the trick. They were doing it every day for a while, but now she is doing so well, she is completely off it. I don't like being pessimistic, but I don't think she'll be off it for long. She also had to have her big toe amputated. The doctors were saying they might have to go directly under her knee, but luckily it wasn't that bad. She is home now and healing nicely, for which we are all very thankful. Hubby was seriously freaked out for a while there, for good reason.

In other big news, we have finally heard from my older sister. And she's pregnant, probably about 4 months along now. This is kind of a good news/bad news situation. Good news because I know she didn't think she'd ever be able to have a child. Bad news because of her diabetes and the severe health risks that implies. And don't get me started on the boyfriend. He is bad news to the extreme and we'll just leave it at that.

One other bit of good news. The spots the doctors found on Grandma Ski's lungs have not gotten worse in the last 6 months or so, so we are taking that as a good sign. If the cancer was back, I would think it would have spread some in that time. So for now, we are crossing our fingers and hoping that she continues to do as well as she's doing now.

So...I guess that's it for now. I'm going to try and not let so much time pass between post from now on.

Our new truck

2006-03-16T15:37:00.000-05:00

We traded in the Forenza for a 2005 Dodge Ram quadcab yesterday! I love it so much. It is so nice to drive and not be 3.75 inches away from the ground. And there is a ton more room than in our old car! Yippee!! Ain't she pretty!!

Birthday Party Pics

2006-03-15T14:16:00.000-05:00

So, I'm finally getting around to loading some pictures from Sebastian's birthday party. We had it last Saturday at the Port Huron Museum. All in all, it went fairly well although the museum itself was smaller than I had thought it would be. We had 10 kids and 10 adults and I think everyone had a very nice time.

This is the sight that greeted us as soon as we opened the doors to the museum. Surprisingly, Sebastian took one look at the T-Rex and freaked out. He ran back out outside and wanted nothing to do with the place at first! But the hubby picked him up and held him and we talked about how it was just a robot and once he could touch the thing and see that it wasn't real, he was okay.

My little paleontologists. From left to right: My nieces Sarah and Ashley, my nephew Michael and Bubba.
Aside from the cool T-Rex at the doors, there were some other really neat robotic dinos. Forgive me if I spell their names wrong, but I'm not the dino expert my son is. :)

The Maiasaura momma and babies

The robotic dino
The sabortooth cat and giant sloth. I'm sure Sebastian knows their "real" names, but I don't remember them.
Bub and the sabertooth cats
The wooly mammoth
Opening gifts
He got lots of DinoAttack Legos! It took the hubby and son over 3 hours to put everything together once we got home!
Singing happy birthday
Blowing out the candle
My niece Laura (who's only 2 years younger than I am!) and my brother-in-law Gary hamming it up for the camera
My niece Laura, great-niece Kaylee and great-nephew Austin
Playing in the dino dig box
Party people in the house!
Very serious at the craft table
More party people

The birthday boy looking oh-so-cute!

The kids at the craft table

The fabulous (and very yummy!) birthday cake
The cake table. They already had the cool dino tablecloth and signage, I added the neat dino confetti I found at Michael's and just had to have.

Happy Birthday Baby!

2006-03-09T18:34:00.000-05:00

Today is Sebastian's 6th birthday. I can hardly believe it. We went out to the Olive Garden last night for his birthday dinner since the hubby has to work tonight. They put a candle in his ice cream sundae and sang their cute little birthday song to the tune of "Funiculi, Funicula." It was so cute, Sebastian started off all excited and giggly, but then his cheeks got all red and he was embarrassed. The one waitress kept saying how cute he was. I think that is what got him all embarrassed.

We let him open his presents bright and early this morning. He got a lot of cool new clothes and some new dinosaur toys which he loves. And a dino book and some dino crayons. All wrapped in dino wrapping paper.

For his special snack at school, we made chocolate dinosaur suckers and candies. They were a big hit with all his classmates. And we have extras for his goodie bags for his party on Saturday.

This morning, he also told me how he absolutely feels different than when he was 5. He kept saying "man these clothes are tight! I must have really grown.'' Yes, he is quite the dramatic one.

So, happy birthday to my baby. You won't let me call you baby anymore to your face, but I can still call you my baby here. I can't hardly believe it has been six years since you were born, but every day you have been such a joy, blessing and source of pride in my life. You are the very best thing that has ever happened to me and every day I love you more.

It's been a while

2006-03-07T16:38:00.000-05:00

since I last posted here, but there has been quite a bit going on in the last month. So let's get updating!

Sebastian's birthday is in 2 days. My little guy is turning 6! I can hardly believe it!! So much of my time lately has been spent in preparing for the big day and the big party that follows two days later. I finished up my shopping for him today, now I just have to find some cool wrapping paper. It must be dinosaur paper. I finally found a card today with a dino on it for "son" after looking at about 64334563567658 gazillion places. Of course, I found it at Tar*get. Silly me, I should have just started there since they have just about everything a body could need there. Well, except for dinosaur wrapping paper. But I've seen that at other stores so I'll just be picking some up while Bub is in school tomorrow.

I ordered these cool dinosaur chocolate sucker and candy molds online to have for Seb's special snack at school on the day of his birthday and to put in his goodie bags for his party. They are really neat and I got the first batch done earlier this after noon. And I found this cute ribbon to tie off the little baggies. It has bones on it. They are actually dog bones, but we can just pretend they are dinosaur bones.

I am really excited about his party. It's being held at the museum in Port Huron where they currently have a dinosaur exhibit going on and are having dino-themed birthday parties there. The kids all get a tour of the exhibit, make a dino craft and play a dino game, then we have an hour for cake and opening presents. This is just so perfect! And of course I ordered a dino cake from Kro*ger and bought a bunch of dino-themed cups/plates/napkins/goodie bags etc. from the party store. It should be lots of fun. Pictures will be forthcoming!

Speaking of pictures, we got a new camera! Since Sebastian dropped our old digital camera while we were at Disney, we needed a new one. We got a Kodak DX7440 and it's really cool. Picture quality is much better than the old one and there are all kinds of options that the old one didn't have. Now if I can only figure out how to use everything!

We went home for Grandma Ski's birthday party 2 weekends ago, which was nice. We got her a shirt and a cute butterfly pin which she loved. My daddy's birthday was that weekend as well, but his present hadn't arrived in the mail yet, so he'll be getting it this weekend. It's a personalized "Grumpy" watch. He is so gonna love it!

Happy news for me!! I have lost 6 more pounds, for a grand total of 31 pounds lost since the beginning of October. Woot! I definitely have to get to exercising now so that I can keep losing and not look like a big saggy sack of skin. One of our friends is getting married later this year (not exactly sure when though) and I'm sure it's going to be a really swanky affair, so I need to look good!

In not so happy news, I had to have my top wisdom teeth pulled last week, which sucked, but not as bad as I thought it was going to. It finally got to the point where I couldn't put it off anymore. I was in so much pain. I feel so much better now. I'm healing nicely, with no bruising, barely any swelling and quite managable pain. And it cost a lot less than we had anticipated, which was an added bonus.

Let's see... what else...

We are still hoping to move to Oregon. Hubby and his friend are supposed to head out at the end of April, which is exciting. The only problem is that Hubby is pretty sure he is going to be offered an assistan manager position before then, which would be really hard to turn down since he would be making nearly twice what he is making now. So basically, we are just playing the waiting game, seeing what happens.

My godfather is back in the hospital again with another infection. Not good.

Grandma Ski seems to be holding her own healthwise though, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way.

We are hoping to lease a new vehicle, hopefully a Dodge Ram quadcab. We are going to try and trade in our rinky dink little car and do the whole zero down thing. With all the incentives and hubby's discount plan from work, we're hoping to be able to keep the payment pretty similar to what we have right now. So, fingers crossed on that one!

More updating later. Time to get ready to pick up the hubby from work!!

Woooohoooo!

2006-02-06T12:51:00.000-05:00

Today is a happy day! I am currently wearing a pair of jeans that I haven't been able to get my big old fanny in for three years! I tried them on about a month ago and was nowhere near able to get them zipped and buttoned. Heck, it seemed like they barely made it over my hips! So it looks like I'm still losing weight. As we don't have a scale ( I believe I mentioned previously what vile, evil things they are!) I am unable to weigh myself, but I'll be able to do so in about 2.5 weeks when we go visit my parents for the weekend. I weighed myself there at the end of December and at that point had lost 25 pounds since the beginning of October when I started eating better. So now I'm a little anxious to see how much more I've taken off.

Hubby made another comment the other night on how he's noticing the weight coming off, which was nice. He keeps talking about how he wants to lose weight as well, he just doesn't have the will power. But I think he's going to be playing some recreational soccor with some of the people he works with soon, so that should help. I just hope he doesn't keel over in the middle of the field! But I'm going to try and be as supportive to him as he has been with me. And before you know it, we'll both be a couple of skinny minnies!

Feelin a wee bit blue

2006-02-02T13:45:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if it's just a case of the Winter Blahs or if my depression is getting ready to rear it's ugly head, but I'm feeling pretty crummy lately. No energy, no motivation to do anything, tired but having problems sleeping, easily irritated, mood swings, etc., etc. You get the drift. It doesn't help that I'm stuck in this stupid apartment most of the time, only getting out when I drive someone to or from school or work. And the rain and gray skies that we've been having lately don't help either.

And the hubby. I swear, if he asks me "what's wrong?" one more time, I am going to bop him on the head. It drives me bonkers! I know he's just worried. He's been with me through some really ugly times and he's always afraid that if I seem the least bit down, I'm going to immediately plummet into a deep, deep depression again. But it feels like he's crowding me and right now, I just want a little space.

I know what I need to do. I need to get off my butt even though I don't want to do anything. I probably should start getting some regular exercise, but God, I just hate exercise, hence the big, fat butt. Maybe a walk today would be good. It's gray, but not too cold, and the Good Lord knows, Sebastian will jump at the chance to be outside for a while. Here's hoping a little exercise and fresh air will improve my mood.

It's time to face the facts

2006-01-30T10:45:00.000-05:00

My baby is growing up. This morning, he refused to walk next to me when I was walking him in to school. He was actually running so he could be a few steps ahead of me and he told I didn't have to walk him in to his classroom anymore. This is on top of the fact that he no longer lets me give him a kiss and a hug in front of his friends anymore. It has to be done out by the car so nobody can see him. I understand why, he doesn't want his friends seeing me smooch all over him. It's embarassing. But it still makes me a little sad.

And here's the big kicker. Every night, I read to him before he goes to bed. Well, two nights ago, he read pretty much the entire book by himself. I think I only had to tell him maybe 5 or 6 words. And it was one of those easy reader books, pretty much: "I am Cam. I can play the drums.", etc. But still. He's reading! Which, don't get me wrong, is way cool. He and I were both very proud that he could do that. But it's just another thing that proves how big he's getting. Sniff.

How much did yesterday suck? Let me count the ways.

2006-01-21T11:18:00.000-05:00

Yesterday began sucking at about, oh 2:23 a.m. Sebastian woke me up saying he was thirsty. No big deal, right? About a half hour later, he wakes me up again, I forget why that time. Again, 20 minutes later, his ear hurts. After mucho kisses and hugs and back rubs, I get him back to bed. 25 minutes later, he's back, thirsty again. This continues pretty much until the alarm goes off for school at 7:15. Every 20-30 minutes he's in my room, telling me he's thirsty, his head hurts, his ear still hurts, he's too hot, etc. So, as you can probably imagine, both Mom and Bub are tired and cranky when the alarm went off. Since I knew he wasn't feeling good, I gave him the option to go to school or stay home and rest. He decided to stay home and rest. Thankful for the reprieve, I shuffled back to bed.

About 45 minutes later, I hear gagging. That's right, now he's barfing. So I run to the bathroom and rub comforting circles on his little back as he hangs his head over the toilet. Good thing we stayed home from school. I get him situated in his bed with a towel and barf bowl and head off back to bed. Just as I'm dozing off, he's yelling that he wants breakfast. Fine. No biggie. I make his breakfast and lay back down. A little while later, I'm awoken by more sounds of gagging. I guess his toast didn't agree with him. Repeat comforting and clean up processes. At this point, I gave up on trying to sleep. It just wasn't going to happen.

But wait. It gets worse. I want to make him an appointment at the doctor's to check out his ear, but before I can do that, I have to try and get in touch with my caseworker at the FIA to see if they've straghtened out the mess of Seb's medicaid case. Back story on that is that they didn't send out my yearly elegibility renewal forms, and when they didn't get the forms that were never sent back by a certain date, they closed Seb's case. Apparently, it never occured to them to make sure they sent out the forms in the first place. This meant I had to go into the office, fill everything out again, then wait for my case worker to reopen the case. I did that last Tuesday. I tried calling her last friday to find out how things were going, and surprise surprise, my case worker never called me back. This is par for the course for the K-zoo FIA.

So I called her again, bright and early yesterday morning, asking her to return my call as soon as she gets it so I can get Seb into the doctors. Not surprising, she didn't call. I called her again after lunch and she says, "Oh, I know that case! The folder has been sitting in my basket and I've been wondering why, since I don't usually put things there." At this point, I'm surprised the steam coming out of my ears doesn't travel through the phone line and singe her ear hairs. WTF!!! Here's an idea lady. Open the folder up and read your notes. Or look it up in your computer. Oh wait, now this might be too much for you, but you could CALL ME and ask me! Seriously, how f'ing stupid can you be!

But I kept my cool, explained how I needed to get my child to the doctors, and could she please take care of this situation. She said she'd take care of it before she left the office that day. So I called and made an appointment for Seb at 6:10 that evening. At about 4:15, the dreaded caseworker calls back. She's having problems. Hubby's paystubs show OT,but I told her he doesn't normally work OT and she doesn't know what to do. I tried explaining the situation to her, yet again. Apparently, it's too hard for her to look at the notes she took when I was in her office. We talk a bit more and I finally say, just do whatever you have to do, talk to your supervisor, put it in the way it is, I don't care, but get this done because I need to take my kid to the doctors. We hang up.

She calls back in less than 5 minutes and says that Seb no longer qualifies for Medicaid, but she's forwarding everything over to MIChild. My file sat on her desk for a week and a half, and yet she managed to do everything she needed to do in 5 minutes? Fine, whatever. So now I'm thinking we're screwed and going to have to pay for Seb's trip to the doctors out of our pocket. But thankfully, when I called the office and explained the situation, they said they could just backbill everything to MIChild. After all the stress and fighting I went through with the FIA, it was almost too easy. Buy hey, I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth. I just won't be surprised if we get a bill in the mail because my stupid caseworker fucks up again and forgets what she's supposed to do with my file and it never gets sent to MIChild.

At his appointment, we found out that Seb has a really nasty ear infection in his right ear. That means antibiotics. Expensive antibiotics that we have to pay for out of our pockets. $120.00. Nice. Thank goodness for hubby's credit card!

And those were the many ways in which my day sucked yesterday. If anybody actually read all that, I applaud you. And hope that your day was much better than mine.

Poor little guy!

2006-01-16T23:15:00.000-05:00

Friday morning, Sebastian woke up with a horrible cold. There was no warning whatsoever. He went to bed Thursday night perfectly fine, then woke up Friday with that horrible barky cough. And now he's stuffed up and sneezing and has a drippy nose and a really nasty phlegmy cough. Luckily, he had today off from school for MLK day. And we were going to keep him home tomorrow anyway because the hubby has to travel out of town for work and I have no other way to get him to school. But even if that wasn't the case, I'd be keeping him home anyway.

I feel so bad for the guy. His eyes have that tired, glassy look and he doesn't have much of an appetite. And he just coughs and snuffles and sneezes all the time. If he's not showing signs of improvement in the next few days, we'll be heading off to the doctor. I know it's cold and flu season, but I don't want to let it go too long and have it turn into pneumonia or something.

So in the meantime, little man and I have been bunking on the couch. Not fun. But Seb has a really sensitive gag reflex and there have already been a few instances where he has come pretty close to gagging himself from coughing so hard. I have this paranoia about him throwing up in his sleep and choking on it and that I won't hear in the other room. So until he's feeling better, I have a new bedmate. At least he doesn't snore as loud as his daddy.

I feel so bad...

2006-01-13T20:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, in our rush to get out the door and get Sebastian to school, I somehow managed to completely miss the fact that his shirt was on backwards. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that it had buttons, so it was glaringly obvious that it was on backwards. It didn't button all the way down, I don't think even I could possibly miss that. It was a long sleeved t-shirt with 2 buttons on the front. Oops.

The worst part was that nobody said anything to him! Not even his teacher! Maybe they thought we were letting him express his creativity or something by dressing that way. Who knows. But I still feel like such a goober for letting him walk out the door like that. Bad Momma!

Taking that first step

2006-01-08T14:18:00.000-05:00

For the last few years, Hubby and I have been talking about how we have to get out of Michigan. Aside from family, there just is nothing keeping us here. The job situation absolutely sucks and we both just have this feeling deep down in our bones that this is not where we are meant to stay. We both agree that we want to head west and have talked about Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and Oregon. One of hubby's friends and his wife have plans to move to Oregon, but have done nothing about it as of yet either.

So today, we have decided to take that first tiny step. Hubby called his friend and this spring, either the two of them or the four of us are going to take a few days and head out to Oregon, most likely Portland and Eugene. We want to be able to check out the area, look at neighborhoods and schools, housing, that sort of thing. It's scary but exciting. We're going to use a hunk of our income tax return for the trip.

So that gives us a few months to do more in-depth research about the area and for hubby to do some job hunting. I don't think my parents will be all that thrilled at first. I mean, they have heard us talking about wanting to move west for a while now, but I don't think they thought we would actually do it. As my mother does not fly, I don't know how often they would be coming to see us. I do think there is a possibility that my brother and his family may head west as well. He has a friend living in Colorado and I know he loves it out there. And I know hubby's brother and his family would come visit us, they love to travel.

So it's a start. I've been googling and expedia-ing all morning, trying to get more information. I can't wait to see where this takes us!

Aint he sweet!

2006-01-07T14:47:00.000-05:00

This morning, even though it was his day off, my hubby got up with the kiddo and let me sleep in. I slept in until 12:30, the longest I've slept in oh, I don't know, 6 years or so. I just love that man! Of course, he went back to bed and has been napping for the last hour and a half....

You know you wanna...

2006-01-06T15:56:00.000-05:00

see more pictures from our trip to Disney World! These are from the 2 disposable cameras, which explains the less than spectacular quality. Also, chances are, if Sebastian is not in the picture, he probably took it. The cameras were initially bought for just Sebastian to use, but once he dropped our digital camera, we kinda took over the use of the disposables.

This picture was taken at the Magic Kingdom, on Main Street and should give you some sort of idea just how busy this place gets around the holidays. And to really put things in perspective, this was taken on one of our first days there, before it got REALLY busy.
We had to purchase Sebastian a new set of ears, since they now had the golden ears for the 50th anniversary. They stitch names on the back in like 0.25 nanoseconds, which is really cool. And how cute does my little man look!
Getting our orders from Buzz before we got on one of Sebastian's very favorite rides
Little man dancing with the other kids at Downtown Disney. This was so cute to watch and he had the biggest smile on his face the whole time.
Also at Downtown Disney is Legoland. Sebastian was just amazed at all the cool things created out of legos
A lego T-Rex. Guess who thought this was the neatest thing since sliced bread?
Posing with the lego robot
Mom and Bub hanging out at Pooh Corner
Getting ready to go on Splash Mountain, one of Sebastian's very favorite rides
Christmas morning, opening his gifts. We had to be pretty sneaky to purchase his gifts without him seeing. It used to be much easier. And Sebastian thought it was way cool that Santa stopped by to drop off his stocking at our hotel room.
Christmas morning, at the O'hana breakfast with Stitch
One night, we had dinner at the Liberty Tree Tavern. It was soooooo yummy, and the pictures turned out great!

With Dale
With Dale again. Notice the untouched plate of macaroni and cheese in front of Sebastian. The boy pretty much lived on bread the entire time we were there.
Daddy, Bub and Goofy
Bub and Minnie
Daddy, Bub and Pluto. I'm not sure what caused that look on my hubby's face, but I think this picture is just absolutely hilarious

Universal Studios

We spent a day at Universal Studios, which was neat. Sebastian was able to see all the Jurassic Park stuff, which he loved. They also had Popeye stuff, which is cool since Sebastian is a huge Popeye fan. I would have loved to have been able to get him a Popeye shirt or some other sort of souvenier, but everything was for adults, which sucked. But he did manage to pose with a few characters, so we had to take pictures.

The Spiderman ride. Sebastian wasn't to keen on this one. It was 3-D and scared him. The only ride that scared him more than this one was the Tower of Terror. He reeeaaally didn't care for that one!
Showing his muscles with Bluto
Getting a hug from Olive Oyl
"Please Momma! Don't feed me to the man-eating shark! I'll be good, I promise!"
The entrance to Sebastian's version of heaven
With the triceratops
The T-Rex attacts!
This one is pretty grainy, but it was in the dino lab and you could make dino noises, which Bub thought was pretty cool.
The Spinosaurus

Our Disney Trip

2006-01-04T13:15:00.000-05:00

We're baaaaaack! Okay, we've been back for over a week now, but my lazy arse is just getting around to posting everything. So, the trip. It was fun, but exhausting. Now that we've done Disney at the holidays, I'm good. And I never want to do it again. It was just so busy. We're thinking when (if) we go back in a few years, we might do it around Halloween. The weather will be a bit nicer and there are a lot of cool things to do for Halloween. I'm sure it will still be busy, but I'm betting not nearly as busy as at Christmas.

Anyway. I have lots of things to share and have posted a ton of pics in the following three posts. The pictures are out of order and scattered over three posts because I am such a loser when it comes to anythig technological and had tons of problems as I was trying to post all the pics. So that's why there is not an iota of organization when it comes to the pictures.

I guess I should start with the plane ride. It was the first for both Sebastian and myself. My dearest son absolutely loved the plane. Me, not so much. We flew from Detroit to Miami, then Miami to Orlando. I tried using just the motion-sickness bracelets on the first flight, but that didn't work out so well. The descent into Miami was too much and I had to make use of the air-sickness bags. Lovely. After that, it was dramomine all the way baby, which worked wonders.

Even though Sebastian didn't show any signs of motion sickness on the plane, we were still a bit worried how he would do on the rides. Turns out, we had absolutely nothing to worry about. He loved the rides, especially Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. This was good news for hubby, because now he has somebody that will do the rides with him. I did Splash Mountain, but now the Railroad. Uh-uh, no way. This time, he also enjoyed the Kali River Rapids ride, where about 8 people pile into one of those round boats and float down the river and down hills where, depending on where you're sitting, you may get a little or a lot wet. We went through once and only got a little wet. Then, since there was no line, we tempted fate and went through again. Big mistake. The boat turned at the last minute and when a enormous wave of water came over the side, I got soaked. I couln't have gotten wetter if I had walked into the shower fully clothed. The only place that wasn't wet was the front of my shirt where I had hunched over myself. Water was just dripping from my jeans, jacket and hair as I walked. The good news was that I was able to provide much amusement for all the people who saw me. So not cool.

While in Florida, we also went to Universal Studios and Gatorland. Universal Studios was cool. Sebastian was able to go on the Jurassic Park ride which is a boat ride through a jungle/forest inhabited by animatronic dinos, then an 85 foot plunge. He loved it! He did some other rides and was able to go into the dino lab and check out a lot of cool dino "stuff."

Gatorland, of course, was one of Sebastian's favorites. He posed for lots of pictures, got to hold a bearded dragon and feed the gators in the "up-close encounter." The encounter was cool. They call the gators up to the edge of the pond and then then you stand back behind a certain area and get to throw hunks of raw meat out to the gators. Sebastian was not to keen on holding the raw meat (they give you rubber gloves) but he didn't want to miss out and ended up doing a great job.

Of course, Disney was all decked out for the holidays, it was just amazing. At MGM Studios, they have the Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights. It was incredible! I don't know how many lights were used, but every building down "Main Street"was just completely covered in lights, alongs with lighted decorations on the sidewalks, the rooftops and strung from building to building. We were able to watch as they turned the lights on and it was so cool. As the lights go on, it also snows (read: bubbles) from the rooftops. Really neat!

We also went to the Candlelight Processional where an orchestra plays, choirs sing and a celebrity (ours was Jim Caveziel all dressed up in a tux! :) ) tells the Christmas story. I thought it was wonderful, Pat could have cared less and Sebastian was bored out of his gourd. And as we were waiting for it to begin, Sebastian dropped our digital camera, screwing up the LCD screen. Hopefully it can be fixed.

One of the neatest things we went to was Phantasmic. It's a laser light show out on a lagoon where Mickey is having a nightmare and must fight all the villians. They show images on these giant walls of water and there are fireworks, and it was just so cool. We all really enjoyed that show.

We also did some character meals while we were there. The first one we went to was Donald's Restaurantasaurus for breakfast. Gee, I wonder why we did that one? :) The restaurant's decor was very cool, lots of neat dino stuff. And we got the chance to pose with some of the characters. Another fun character breakfast was the Princess Breakfast. Sebastian was being a crab that moring and didn't want anything to do with the Princesses at first. Then Princess Aurora gave him a smooch and just like Sleeping Beauty, he woke up and was okay with them. He got a big kick out of the fact that all the Princesses called him Young Prince. I told him of course they called him Young Prince. Since I'm the Queen, that makes him a Prince. Funny, but neither he nor my hubby thought that was true.

There were a few things that detracted from our trip. As I mentioned above, it was just crazy busy, as was to be expected. I don't think I would have minded the crowds so much if it hadn't been for how rude a lot of the people were. And it was mostly adults who were being rude. While I enjoy all the hoopla of Disney World, in my eyes, the trip is for my son. And I tried to not only look out for my son, but for other kids as well. By this I mean watching where I am going so that I didn't run into anybody's kids, making sure the kids have better seats at the shows and parades, etc. Apparently, not everybody feels the same. I can't begin to count how many times Sebastian was jostled and nearly run over by adults racing to get to the next ride or get a better seat at one of the many parades. I know he picked up some knew vocabulary. He was almost incinerated (okay, I am exagerating slightly) when the butthead infront of us lit up a ciggy, then flung the ashes behind him without even looking. And I know we weren't in a designated smoking area at the time! There was even one man who was giving the finger to one the characters while posing for a picture. I mean, come on. How crude can you be.

Also detracting from our trip was Sebastian's attitude. Pretty much from the minute we arrive in Orlando, he morphed into a holy terror. He whined, he threw fits, he was sassy. Yes, he does these things at home to a degree, but it was like the minute we landed in Florida, some switch was flicked and he was a totally different child. I expected him to act a little different because it is such an overwhelming thing to be there, but this was just nuts and highly irritating.

Anyhoo, that's the basic rundown of our trip. I'm sure I'll remember more details in the days to come and I'll have more pics to post once we get the pics from the disposable cameras that we used back as well.

And now, for Erin's final thoughts...I am so happy to be home! I am all Disney-ed out!

Disney Pictures

2006-01-04T12:15:00.000-05:00

Daddy and Bubba waiting for Phantasmic. This is one of my very favorite photos
Mommy and Bub, waiting for the Candlelight Processional. This picture was take about 20 seconds before Sebastian dropped our digital camera causing the LCD screen to go all wonky.

The next few pictures are from the Princess Breakfast. That was...interesting to say the least. Sebastian was in one of his moods that day and was being a big booger. Then when all the princesses started coming around, he was acting all shy. My son is the exact opposite of shy, so I'm not quite sure what was going on.

The shy "Prince." If you look closely at his temple, you can see where Princess Aurora stole a smooch.

Hiding from everyone

With Cinderella
With Princess Aurora, aka, the smoocher

With Mary Poppins, who told Sebastian to "Sit up straight, young man!"
Being silly with Mulan. Bubba said she was tickling him
Gatorland

Sebastian, lover of all things reptilian, was so psyched to be able to return to Gatorland this year. Of course, we took lots of pictures. Some of the cool things he was able to do was feed some hungry gators in the up-close encounter, hold a lizard and save his daddy from the jaws of a man-eating alligator.

Being a ham
Sebastian, the amazing Gator Tamer!
The hungry gators coming up for food at the up-close encounter
I think the sign speaks for itself!
Holding the lizard. I think it was a bearded dragon.
Here, Sebastian is a bit unsure if he wanted to hold the lizard. He was afraid it had long, sharp claws that would scratch him. After the keeper showed him that those were long toes, not claws, Sebastian was game for holding the lizard as the above picture shows.
Sebastian lost his second bottom front tooth while we were at Gatorland. I wasn't too surprised since it was super loose, but this one bled a lot more than the first one which freaked him out. But he was very happy to discover that the tooth fairy was still able to find him in Florida
Love that gap-toothed smile!

Disney pictures

2006-01-04T09:32:00.000-05:00

This was the boat at the end of Phantasmic at MGM Studios. The rest of the pictures I took there didn't turn out, which sucks because I thought this was one of the neatest things at WDW. It's a laser/light show where the images are shown on giant walls of water, and so much more. If you ever get a chance, I HIGHLY recommend this show!

The Osbourne Family Spectacle of Lights. This was AMAZING! Every building down "Main Street" was completely covered in lights, as well as the things on rooftops and strung between buildings. This picture absolutely does not do it justice, but it was the only one that I took that somewhat turned out.

Playing drums in "Africa" in the Animal Kingdom
With Dale

With Eeyore

Mommy and Bubba posing with the troll after the Maelstrom ride in the Norway pavillion at Epcot

With Rafiki
With Piglet
With Pinocchio and Papa Geppetto
With Pocahontas

With Stanley

Disney pictures

2006-01-01T09:27:00.000-05:00

Posing with Goofy at Donald's Restaurantasaurus

With Nemo and friends
Mom and Bub by the hammerhead from Nemo
With his very favorite Disney character, Buzz Lightyear
Posing with the mouse himself at Restarauntasaurus
On his very first airplane ride ever. This was obviously taken while mommy was still capable of using the camera because she hadn't started puking her guts out yet. :)
At Epcot, in front of the Universe of Energy
The cool decorations inside the Restaurantasaurus
More dino shrubbery at Epcot
The whole family with Donald at Restaurantasaurus

Wish us luck!

2005-12-14T10:46:00.000-05:00

Hubby has 2 interviews tomorrow! They are phone interviews, but both are for positions in human resources, so he's pretty excited. The only problem is that he has the interviews tomorrow and then we leave the following afternoon for 2 weeks for our trip to Disney. Most likely, if he does well on these phone interviews, they'd want him to come back for sit-down interview, probably during the time we are away. Gah, I guess all we can do is wait until tomorrow and see how everything goes. But it sure would be nice to have some good news before we leave.

Very special weekend

2005-12-11T14:12:00.000-05:00

This has been a very important weekend! Yesterday, my dearest hubby finally graduated from WMU! It has taken 10 years, with many stops and starts (who would have guessed having a child would cause so much change!), but my hubby never gave up and I am so very, very proud of him!

Sebastian was bored out of his gourd during the graduation ceremony. Not surprisingly, he pulled some of his "tricks" like bopping the guy who was sitting in the row ahead of us on the head and poking the same man's wife in the back with a dinosaur. And telling me every 37 seconds that he was starving.

But when hubby's name was finally called, Sebastian was jumping up and down, clapping and yelling "Daddy! Daddy!" which made about half the people in the auditorium stop and say "Awwwwwww!" It was really cute. I didn't cry, although I did get teary seeing him walk in and when his name was called. What can I say, I'm a very proud wifey!

And of course I had to post some pictures from our very special day!

Today is special as well because it is mine and hubby's 6 year wedding anniversary! We aren't doing anything special and I don't think either one of us really thought about it this morning because neither of us said anything to the other, but we are very happy. And who knows, hubby could come home and surprise me with something.

What? It could happen.

The Disney Update

2005-12-09T08:38:00.000-05:00

8 more days!!!!

We are all very excited! Well, hubby and I are also a bit worried because there was a mix-up at his work and now we may not be getting the vacation pay he was supposed to be getting. We are supposed to find out today what is going on with that. I won't get into all the details, but let's just say hubby is not a happy man right now.

I purchased some of those motion-sickness bands at the store the other day, so hopefully that will help me on the plane and on the rides. My sister-in-law swears by them, so I'm hoping they work for me as well. Normally, I would take Dram*omine (or however you spell it!) but it makes me so tired! And I really don't want to puke on the plane. I'm not so worried about the flight from Detroit to Miami. But the flight from Miami to Orlando is basically going to be just up and down, and according to my sister, that's the worst. So we'll see.

I seem to have moved on from my terror of flying. Of course I have a new paranoia now. I'm becoming increasingly afraid of getting separated from Sebastian while on vacation, either at the airport or the parks. He's too big to park in a stroller like we did the last time we went and he's at that point where he wants to be all independent and not hold hands. I think we are going to have to just institue a strict hand-holding rule for while we are there. I even thought about those kid-leashes, where we could strap his wrist to min, but I just can't do that.

I told hubby about my new fear the other night and he just rolled his eyes at me. I'm very excited about this trip, but at the same time, boy, I just can't wait until it's over as well. There is just so much to worry about and I am a champion worrier.

He's so multi-talented!

2005-12-04T10:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Sebastian discovered a new talent. He can now do armpit farts. You know, when you cup your hand in your armpit and flap your arm up and down til it makes a farting sound. I have never been so proud in my life. Thank God the hubby taught him that valuable life skill.

Holy hotflashes, Batman!

2005-12-02T22:40:00.000-05:00

For the love of God, I am only 27 years old. What is up with the hotflashes? As soon as we get some insurance, I am hauling my big, fat arse into the doctors and getting this checked out. This is ridiculous!

just a cute picture

2005-11-29T15:51:00.000-05:00

Here's me and my favorite guy, mugging for the camera

clean up on aisle 3!

2005-11-28T18:32:00.000-05:00

Apparently the warmer weather and being stuck in a car for a while didn't sit well with Sebastian today. Or more accurately, it didn't sit well with his stomach. Shortly after we got back from dropping hubby off at school, Sebastian barged in on me in the bathroom, saying "Mom, I'm gonna hu.....bleeeeeecccchhhh. Where he picked up the word hurl, I don't know, but hurl he did. All over the bathroom. Huge freakin' mess. And let me tell ya', I just loooooove cleaning up barf (isn't sarcasm a wonderful thing!).

Poor kid. He's fine now, I hope. I think it was just a spot of car-sickness. He seems to be okay now, knock on wood.

2005-11-26T10:32:00.000-05:00

Here's some pics that I took on Thanksgiving. We actually got motivated and put our tree up that morning. Unfortunately, last night I discovered that one of the strings of lights on our fabulous pre-lit tree is out, so hubby has the great pleasure of figuring out that problem today. I'm hoping I can convince my boys to take a little trip today to get a new star for the top of the tree (the one we have is broken and looks drunk) and perhaps a few more ornaments (there were some really cool wooden star ornaments at Tar*get that only cost a buck!).

As you can see, Sebastian is having a hard time keeping his hands off the tree!

Sebastian made this cute little turkey hat/visor at school on Wednesday. It's barely been off his head since then. And c'mon, look how cute he is! Don't ya just love the smiley face boxers!!

And I still wish I had taken a picute of my turkey. It just looked so pretty! Oh well.

Thanksgiving '05

2005-11-25T15:12:00.000-05:00

We had a very nice, quiet Thanksgiving yesterday with just the three of us. It was almost just the two of us though, since Wednesday night, Sebastian decided for some insane reason that he was going to insert a set of keys into the electrical outlet in his room. I was out in the living room making some appetizers for the next day when I heard a big popping noise and all the overhead lights on one side of the apartment went out. Sebastian came running out of his room, scared out of his mind. Somehow, by the grace of God, he didn't get hurt at all, just blew a fuse. I, on the other hand, nearly had a heart attack. I honestly thought he knew bettter. We've talked to him about not touching the outlets before, but apparently, we didn't make ourselves clear enough. Well, he's clearly got the message now. He literally scared the poop out of himself. But I don't think he'll be trying anything like that ever again.

Thursday morning, we woke up to lots of snow and heavy winds. We stayed in our nice, warm apartment, cleaned the living room and put up our Christmas tree and all our other decorations. After lunch, I showered and then got crackin' making our Thanksgiving dinner. I forgot to buy the cranberry sauce, burned the bottom of the stuffing, made a huge mess and cooked an AWESOME turkey. Seriously, I wanted to take a picture because it turned out so pretty. And it actually tasted good too. I was way proud of myself.

And miracle of all miracles, we got Sebastian to try some turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy and sweet potatoes. He only tried a little bit of each, but the big thing is that he actually tried it. Of course, I bribed him with $10, but still, my kid ate something other than Ramen Noodles, chicken nuggets and butter toast. He said they all tasted good, but he didn't eat more than a bite or two of each. But I don't care. My kid tried some different foods!

I know, it sounds like I'm making a big deal out of nothing and I bribed my kid, but you have to understand, Sebastian seriously only eats about 10 foods. I'm not kidding. I have been worrying and fretting for nearly 5 years now about his extreme picky eating, and now we are finally making some progress.

So, it was a very pleasant holiday. We got our tree up, my kid ate new foods, the food turned out great even though I set off the smoke alarm (There wasn't really any smoke, just a lot of heat being pumped into our very tiny apartment), and I didn't have to leave my house. Good times people. Good times.

my kid is the sweetest!

2005-11-23T19:01:00.000-05:00

All Sebastian has been able to talk about lately is our trip to Disney World and how he is saving his money so he can buy lots of cool stuff. He has about $22 saved up so far. Well tonight, he came out and said he wanted to give all his money to the people with torn down houses. He meant the people affected by Katrina. How sweet is that! I just love that kid!

30 days!

2005-11-17T19:06:00.000-05:00

Until we leave for Disney World. Woot!!!!!!

So yesterday pretty much sucked big time!

2005-11-17T09:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday started off bad and ended worse. On Monday and Wednesday mornings, I have to get up early and drive Hubby to work. Monday we leave at 4:30 a.m. and Wednesday we leave at 5:30 a.m. Part of the arrangement we have with hubby's nephew living with us is that he has to be here on those mornings to stay with Sebastian so that I don't have to wake him up that early and take him with us since he has to be up at 7:15 to get ready for school.

Well, my nephew never came home Sunday night, which meant that we had to bring Sebastian with us Monday morning. None of us were happy about that, especially Sebastian. When we asked R. (the nephew) about it later that day, he said he was watching a movie at his friend's dorm and fell asleep. Whatever. I guess it could happen, so we gave him the benefit of the doubt.

So on Tuesday, R. was home all afternoon and evening, sitting out in the living room when Hubby and I went to bed that night. As we were getting ready to leave to take Hubby to work Wednesday morning, I noticed the chain on the door wasn't hooked and Hubby had put the chain on before he went to bed the night before. And R.'s shoes weren't by the door. So I went into his room and checked to see if he was in bed. He wasn't.

At this point, I was highly irate. What if by some chance, we hadn't noticed that the door was unchained and his shoes were gone. Not very likely, but it could have happened. If we had gone and left Sebastian here all by himself because we thought R. was here like he was supposed to be, well, let's just say that R. would have seen a side of me that would more than likely scare the shit out of him. And, he would have been out on his ass so fast, he wouldn't know what hit him.

The thing that pissed me off the most was that we are doing so much for him and all that we ask of him is to be here two mornings a week. I don't think that is too much to ask since we are providing him with a place to live, food to eat, hell Hubby just dropped close to $150 on clothes for him 2 weeks ago. I really don't think we are asking for much.

So Hubby had a chat with him yesterday, stressing the above sentiment and letting him know that he is going to have to start being more responsible. We both remember what it is like to be away from your parents for the first time. Oh, the freedom! But we are giving him an incredible opportunity, and lately, it kind of feels like he's biting the hand that (literally) feeds him.

So here's where the day goes from bad to worse. R. had to go see a play for his art class yesterday evening. About 5 minutes after he left, we get a phone call. He's okay, but the roads were icy and he hit a telephone pole, totalling the front end of his car. So we had to have it towed back here. I do not envy R. the task of having to tell his father (who is probably going to go ape-shit) or Hubby's brother, who actually fixed the car up and gave it to R.

Obviously, the last few days have just been oodles and oodles of fun around here. I knew it seemed like things were just going along too smoothly.

The tooth fairy finally came to visit

2005-11-15T13:27:00.000-05:00

A little over a month ago, Sebastian discovered that he had a loose tooth. After weeks of wiggling and tugging, the stubborn thing finally fell out last night. I should have known it was going to happen; we have our family Christmas pictures scheduled for tonight!

A few minutes after I put Sebastian to bed last night, he came back out into the living room asking me to look at how loose his tooth now was. It was just barely hanging on, but he was too scared to pull it out. After some tears, he decided to keep wiggling it and it finally fell out. He was a little teary but very proud of himself. I, of course being the big goober that I am, started crying. Just another sign that my little man is growing up!

So the tooth fairy came last night and left him $5, lucky kid! And this morning, Seb told me that he now has another loose tooth! So of course I had to post some pictures of the toothless wonder!

I seriously don't understand some people

2005-11-12T14:42:00.000-05:00

I am actually pretty upset right now. I took Sebastian to see "Chicken Little" and then out to lunch at the Olive Garden today. On the way home, I glanced in my rearview mirror and absolutely could not believe my eyes! In the minivan behind me a man was driving and I'm presuming his wife was in the passenger seat. Both were wearing their seatbelts. The woman was holding what appeared to be a 4-5 month old baby on her lap. WHAT!!!!???!!!! What was she thinking???????

At first she was just holding the baby on her lap, but after a while, she picked it up and was holding it up in the air, looking like perhaps she was blowing raspberries on the babies belly. I just couldn't believe it!!! It's not like the baby was fussing and throwing a fit so that the mom could say she was comforting it. Nope. That baby was as happy as could be. I really have to wonder what was going through these people's heads?? And where in the heck was a police car when you really need one.

We may be staying in Kalamazoo after all!

2005-11-10T23:40:00.000-05:00

The big story on my local news tonight was all about the Kalamazoo Promise. Basically, a group of anonymous benefactors has decided to put up the money to pay the college tuition and fees via a scholarship program for all graduates of KPS starting with this years graduates. Students who have been a part of KPS since kindergarten will have 100% of the tuition and fees paid, and graduates who have started after kindergarten but have at least 4 years with KPS will have a portion, I believe I heard 65%, of their college expenses paid.

Boy does this make me glad we started Sebastian in KPS as a kindergartener! We really didn't want to remain here in Kalamazoo after hubby graduated and had figured on moving this summer, but this really is a good incentive for us to stay here. Yes, I realize Sebastian is only 5 and college is a long way off, but you can't start planning too soon and if we don't have to worry about paying for his college or him being saddled with huge student loan bills like hubby and I have, well that would just be wonderful.

I don't have all the details of the program, as it was only announced tonight, but I am really interested in seeing how this all plays out in the near future. If it really pans out the way the media is saying, it will be just incredible. I am definetely going to be watching this story with eager eyes.

feeling petty and mean

2005-11-09T18:53:00.000-05:00

Hubby's nephew has been living with us for about 2.5 months now so that he can attend college and not have to worry about room and board. He's a good kid and doesn't cause us any trouble, but lately, I'm finding myself getting irritated about some of the things he does do, and that just makes me feel like a shitty person.

The thing that has been bothering me the most is his attitude towards his classes. He easily skips his classes at least half the time. And that is what I know only from the days he is here. Who knows how often he skips when he stays over at his buddy's dorm room, which he does quite frequently. His excuse is that his classes don't have attendence policies and that he is doing fine. I find this somewhat hard to believe. Not that I didn't skip my fair share of classes, but to me, this is getting a bit ridiculous. I mentioned it to my hubby and we've decided that we are going to wait until he gets his report card before we do anything. If at that time we find out that he has been lying to us and has not done well in his classes, he will be getting a very serious talking to.

For his sake, I hope he is telling the truth. But if he isn't, I am going to be supremely pissed off. We took him in to help him out so he can make a better life for himself, not just have a good time and occasionally go to a class here and there. Lord knows we can't afford to have somebody else living here gratis, just for the heck of it. We are just barely scraping by as it is.

My other gripe, and this one is really petty, is that he sleeps out on the couch most of the time. If that was his only choice for sleeping space, it would be fine, but we went out and spent nearly $650 on nice bunk beds so that he would have somewhere to sleep without having to worry that the top bunk was going to come crashing down on Sebastian. If he was just going to sleep on the couch, why the hell did we spend all that money on bunk beds??!!??? And then the second part of this gripe is that when he is conked out on the couch until 1 in the afternoon, I feel like I can't use my living room, which is a huge pain in the ass. I mean, it's my house and I feel like I have been exiled to my bedroom a good portion of the time

So, terribly mean and petty, right? It irritates me that I feel this way, especially when I think about how he actually has it so much better here because his homelife has always been pretty shitty because both his parents are...well, let's just say I have never in my life met anybody like either of his parents or step-parents. But yet, I find myself getting more irritated by these things every day. I don't know. I guess things are just going to continue on this way until the end of the semester (only one month away!) when we find out if he has been telling us the truth or shitting on us.

School conferences

2005-11-08T12:29:00.000-05:00

Last night I went to Sebastian's first school conference. Hubby was originally going to come as well, but he's feeling pretty sick (strep throat is going around his work, joy), so he stayed home with the bubster.

As I was getting ready to leave, Sebastian wanted to know where I was going, and when I told him I was going to have a talk with his teacher so she could tell me how he is doing at school, I got a bit of a surprise. Sebastian proceeded to tell me all the "bad" things he has done at school so far. It was so funny! Nothing terrible, just little things like goofing off with his friend when he was supposed to be paying attention. But is was just too cute, like he felt he needed to 'fess up in case Ms. Lynch said some bad stuff.

Of course, Ms. Lynch had mostly good things to say. The first comment she made was that Seb just cracks her up, with the things he says and the way he says things. He gets his whole body into it, his eyebrows and cute little facial expressions, and gestures with his hands. She was also very impressed with his vast knowledge of living things (read: dinosaurs and reptiles). No big surprise there!

She was also pretty impressed that he could count to 100 on his own at the beginning of the year. She said that is one of the goals they hope the kids can do by the end of kindergarten, so he is ahead of the curve there. But he needs to work on writing his numbers and being able to recognize them once they are written. She also wants him to practice just writing and manipulating a pencil, because she said he doesn't seem completely comfortable with that as of right now when it comes to writing his numbers and letters. The kid can draw like no 5 year old has business doing, but when it comes to focusing and actually writing, he's still struggling a bit. Part of that may be that he's left handed, who knows.

Over all, he seems to be doing very well. I was so worried that he was going to be so far behind the other kids because he didn't go to preschool and he hasn't been around other kids his age very much, but Ms. Lynch doesn't seem to think there are any problems. Or if she does, she didn't mention them to me. I think there will be conferences again after the new year, so we'll just have to wait and see what she says then and I'm going to keep trying to work with him at home.

Yikes!

2005-11-04T13:09:00.000-05:00

Things seem to be moving a wee bit fast here. Hubby graduates in 5 weeks, which we are both so very excited about. So we have been talking a lot lately about what is going to happen afterwards: job prospects, salary, moving, etc. One other thing that has come up a lot lately has been the idea of finally buying a home, which is an etremely exciting and terrifying idea. In my own mind, I had just figured that P. would get a good job (fingers crossed!), we'd move if we had to, and perhaps find a bigger, nicer apartment while we paid down our student loans and credit cards a bit, then buy a house in the next 2 years or so.

Well, last night I found out that hubby's time frame is a wee bit different than mine. He is actually hoping that we may be able to get into a house sometime over the summer. WHAT???!!!???

I think it would be safe to say that I don't really deal with big changes very well, and I think this all qualifies for a HUGE change! I just don't see how he thinks we can manage all of this so quickly. Unless he manages to get a job with like triple what he is making now. And the good Lord knows I would definitely not be complaining about that. But I just don't see that happening right off the bat. So yeah, I'm a bit freaked out about all this. But he's got so much on his plate right now that I don't want to be a downer. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how things turn out.

Dieting stinks...but it works!

2005-11-02T12:40:00.000-05:00

In an effort to lose some weight before we go to Disney world (in 47 days!!!!!), I have been dieting for about a month now. I haven't been able to track exactly how much weight I've lost since I don't own a scale (vile, nasty things!), but I have noticed that my stomach is no longer bigger than my boobs (which gives an idea on just how big these old boobs are!) and I seem to be less "puffy" in my hands and face.

This past weekend though, I was visiting my parents and decided to be a big, brave girl and step on the scale. To my great surprise, I had lost 15 pounds since the last time I weighed myself at their house, back in July. I was so happy, I had to do a little happy dance right there in the bathroom! And this was all accomplished with virtually no excercise whatsoever. Just cutting out all snacks completely, drinking only water and cutting waaaaaay back on the amount of calories I consumed each day.

Hubby's response to my great news was "Gee, just imagine how much more you could have lost if you'd actually excercised!" I admit, he's got a point, but man, exercising is even worse than dieting! Maybe I'll try and squeeze some in in the next 6.5 weeks. But no promises.

Happy Halloween!!!

2005-10-31T21:21:00.000-05:00

It's Halloween! Hubby and I took Sebastian trick or treating tonight in the neighborhood around his school. We were only out for about an hour or so, because it started raining pretty good, But Sebastian actually hauled in a good amount of candy in that time. I decided to finally post some of the pics that I have taken over the past 2 weeks or so.

Here are Sebastian and hubby at the Zoo Boo last weekend.

Sebastian at the apple orchard/pumpkin patch

Carving the pumpkins with daddy

On Saturday, we went to see my Grandma at the nursing home. They have a party every year with games and food and candy for the little ones. As you can see, my Grandma was so happy to see the great-grandkids!

Sebastian with his cousins and Grandma Ski

Sebastian with Grandma Ski

Sebastian was Buzz Lightyear again this year, at the Zoo Boo, at his school party and at the nursing home. But for trick or treating tonight, he decided he wanted to wear his crocodile costume from two years ago. Luckily, it still (just barely!) fit him. It actually turned out to be a good choice, what with the rain and everything. He had a great time tonight, even with the rain and despite the fact that he tripped over an uneven spot in the sidewalk and took quite a spill. He did manage to save his candy though! Apparantly, that was the important thing!

Happy Halloween!!!

Dr. Gellar strikes again!

2005-10-26T22:23:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I had to take the car back in to the dealer because the parts that we had on order finally came in. Hubby had class, so I had to take Sebastian with me and since I knew we'd be there for at least an hour, I came well prepared with lots of toys and snacks.

Sebastian, Mr. Social, felt the need to talk to every single person that came into the waiting room. At one point, he brought a dinosaur that he was playing with over to a man and dropped it into his lap. The guy asked Sebastian what kind of animal it was, expecting him to say "dinosaur." Boy, did he ask the wrong kid! Sebastian went on to inform him that it was a Raptor, which means speedy killer and that it is a meat eater from the Cretaceous period. He also told him that it is a predator that hunts in packs, using its gut claw when it hops onto its prey so that it can cut it open and the group of predators can than feed. And so on and so forth.

I just sat there laughing, thinking I was going to have to go over and pick the guy's jaw up off the floor. He asked Sebastian how old he was, and when Sebastian told him that he's 5, the guy was just totally amazed. He told me that I have a really smart kid. I, of course, already knew that, proud mom that I am. It's just funny to watch other people's reactions when they are subjected to Sebastian's Dr. Gellar routine.

12 years together

2005-10-21T09:43:00.000-04:00

12 years ago today, my hubby asked me to be his girlfriend. We were juniors in H.S. and had had a great time together at homecoming the week before on our very first date. We have been together ever since.

The first few years together were not so great. We broke up and got back together more times than I can count. But somehow, we always managed to work things out and get back together. We've put a lot of hard work into this relationship and I can honestly say that all the crap we have gone through to get where we are today has been so worth it. Not only have we been blessed with such a wonderful child together, but for the last few years now, my relationship with my hubby is at its strongest and is the best it has ever been.

We don't do anything to celebrate this anniverary, just our wedding anniversary. But every year on this day, I think back to when we began dating and think about how far we've come and how happy we are today.

2005-10-17T10:39:00.000-04:00

This morning, I dropped off our car to have the trunk repaired from where it was vandalized last weeks. I was met at the autobody place by a nice (and cute!) young gentleman from Enterprise who was dropping off our rental car. For the next few days, yours truly will be driving around town in a white Cadillac CTS. How cool is that! I'm afraid it's going to spoil me and I'm not going to want to go back to driving our rinky-dink Suzuki Forenza when it's finally repaired.

It's funny though, because the other day, Hubby and I were speculating as to what kind of rental car it was going to be because my insurance rep told me it would be a pretty nice one with the coverage that we had. I jokingly said that it would be a Escalade or something like that, and of course hubby looked at me like I was a dork and said there was no way they were going to give us a cadillac. Hmm, it's not an Escalade, but it looks like I was right about the cadillac part! I think I may cry when I have to turn it in!

I opted to get the $10/day coverage thru enterprise in case anything happens to it. I figure if somebody was willing to mess with our stupid Forenza, I can only imagine what they might do to such a nice car. So I figured better to be safe than sorry!

I hate mean people

2005-10-14T12:20:00.000-04:00

So yesterday pretty much sucked. Our car was vandalized overnight. I was running late yesterday morning and didn't notice the damage until I got out of the car at Sebastian's school. The stupid jerks that did this put some really deep gouges in the trunk lid, tried to pull off our license plate, pulled one of the hubcaps halfway off, and stole one of the caps for the air valve on the same tire, which let some of the air out of the tire.

I was highly pissed when I saw the damage! I came home and woke up the hubby so he could take a look at the car. Neither of us could figure out why somebody would single out just our car to do this. It's a freakin Suzuki Forenza, no big deal. We don't have any expensive electronics for them to attempt to steal. We haven't had any confrontations with anybody, which we were asked by both the police and insurance company. Just a random act of meanness, I guess. It's so frustrating.

So now we're going to have to shell out $250 for our deductable, which really sucks, cuz it's coming out of the money set aside for our trip to Disney World. At least we don't have to pay for a rental car since it's covered under our insurance policy. When I first called our insurance guy, he made it out to sound like we were going to have to pay for the rental car as well. That would have really sucked because who knows how long it's going to take to fix the stupid car.

As I said in my last post, I cannot wait until we can move from here! How ironic is it that I was just talking about how we completely keep to ourselves here because we're afraid of what the stupid people might do if we inadvertantly pissed them off. Then a few days later, our car gets trashed. It's just not fair. Grrrrr!

Eeeeuuuwww!

2005-10-10T12:30:00.000-04:00

We live in one of the least expensive apartment complexes in a college town. Naturally, we are surrounded by college students. I have gotten used to the loud music thumping through the walls at 3 a.m. I have gotten used to hearing their potty mouths (and thank God that Sebastian hasn't picked up any of their horrible language). I have even gotten used to the parking lot being a mess because none of them can remember how to park when they return home from parties in a drunken stupor.

But there is one thing I cannot get used to: the horking up of big booger wads. Although he's not the only one who's guilty of doing it, we have one young gentleman who does this every freakin time he gets in or out of his car, which he seems to park right in front of our window 99% of the time. It is so damn disgusting! We literally have to watch where we step when going out to the parking lot. Didn't his momma ever show him what a hankerchief is for? I mean, come on. If I can refrain from doing it while in the middle of a very nasty sinus infection and so much sinus drainage, I am practically floating, can't he?

It is so gross. And while I would love to chew him out about it, I'm too afraid to do it in case there are any repurcussions. The last time I yelled at some kids for using nasty language around Sebastian, I got some really evil looks and our car was mysteriously stolen the next night by some kids who wanted to go joyriding. They totalled the car and left it sitting in downtown Kalamazoo. They were not caught, so I can't be sure it was the same kids, but I highly doubt it was simply a coincidence. So I'll just keep my mouth shut and just hope that we can move from this hell-hole soon.

First guitar lesson

2005-10-08T11:56:00.000-04:00

My nephew's family is out for family weekend at WMU, and his half-brother brought his guitar with him. N. (the brother) gave Sebastian a quick guitar lesson. It was really cute. You'll notice Seb had to use his left foot to help prop up the guitar since he's too little to hold it up by himself. I just had to get some pics when I saw how cute he was just concentrating so hard. I have a feeling he's going to be asking for a guitar of his own in the near future.

my little man's growing up

2005-10-06T09:41:00.000-04:00

I'm so sad. I can no longer kiss Sebastian or call him "baby" when I drop him off or pick him up from school. He said the kids might laugh at him. I knew this was going to happen eventually, but I didn't realize it would be so soon. It's a sad, sad day. :(

More bad news

2005-09-30T12:24:00.000-04:00

I swear, I think I am just going to stop talking on the phone. It seems like everytime the phone rings, if it's not a telemarketer, it's a family member calling with with more bad news. I talked to my mother today to have her make me a hair appointment and to find out how my grandma is doing. I know she has decided to not do anymore testing to find out if her cancer has returned, but I had assumed that they would at least keep monitoring her with x-rays or something, just to see if the spots on her lungs have continued to spread. But apparently the plan of action is to do nothing as long as she's feeling pretty good. So basically, it's just a waiting game. As of right now, she's feeling okay, but I'm glad Sebastian and I are going home for a visit in a few weeks, just in case.

In other bad news, my uncle (who is also my godfather) called my dad the other night to tell him that he has inoperable cancer and only has 12-18 months to live. The doctor said it's in his bile duct and his liver. Not good. I don't even know what else to say. It's just a really crappy day.

My husband is the devil

2005-09-28T09:24:00.000-04:00

Okay, maybe not the devil, but he is truly evil. He knows that I am trying to eat better and have completely cut out the snacking. So, what does he do? He comes home from the store with one of those 4 lb bags of mixed candy for Halloween, that's what. And it's not like he bought it for trick or treaters either because there is no way in hell that the candy will last an entire month, even without me eating some. Hubby has a huge sweet tooth, so he'll eat most of it, with Sebastian and my nephew helping out.

So of course I ripped into him when I saw what he bought. He just laughed, the bastard. But I will prevail. We are on day three of no snacking, just three healthy meals a day. And when we're walking around Disney World and I'm thinner and he's still hauling his big old gut around, we'll see who's laughing then. So there. Ha.

I'm dieting. Seriously.

2005-09-27T13:20:00.000-04:00

I know that way back in June when I started this blog, I said I was going to start dieting and exercising for our trip to Florida. Well, it didn't happen. But now that we only have two and a half months until we leave, I've gone somewhat into panic mode. So as of yesterday, I am seriously dieting and I'm going to try and get in at least 30 minutes each day on the eliptical that up to now, has only served as a clothes rack.

The hardest part is not snacking. I love to snack. I must have found myself walking into the kitchen 25 times yesterday, going to the fridge for a little snack. And half the time, I wasn't even hungry. I am such a boredom eater. But I mangaged to make it through the entire day without snacking and so far so good today. The hardest times are after I drop the little man at school in the morning and have the house all to myself, and then after dinner. And of course the hubby has no problem snacking in front of me. I'm sure he's just waiting to see how long I last this time. He's predicted that by the end of the week, I'll be back to snacking and eating way too much. Which normally wouldn't be too far off track, but not this time. Every time I want to start snacking, I'm going to think of him and how I am going to prove him wrong. Maybe not the best motivation, but it works for me.

Really starting to dislike Meijer

2005-09-26T13:02:00.000-04:00

As has become my usualy Monday morning routine, I did our weekly grocery shopping at Meijer after dropping the bubster off at school. I really wish we had a Super Target or Super Wal Mart near us, because if there were, I would never have to shop at Meijer again. In their attempt to become more like Wal Mart (Sebastian now calls Meijer "Meijer Mart" because the inside of the store so closely resembles WM), the Meijer near us has been completely remodeled. Nothing is where it should be. Case in point: In my desire to lose some weight before we go to Florida in 3 months, I decided that I was going to start drinking slim fast for breakfast and lunch (and then a sensible dinner of course!). I walked up and down every frickin aisle and could not find the slim fast. And half the time you can't even get up and down the aisles because employees are moving stuff from one aisle to another. They are open 24 hours! Why aren't they doing this stuff at 3 a.m. when nobody is there???

My other beef with Meijer. They already have their x-mas stuff out. There is still more than a month until Halloween! I don't even want to begin thinking about x-mas for at least another month! Why must they try and force it on me so soon??!!? I'm not ready!

Okay, end of whining. For now.

1st loose tooth!

2005-09-25T10:42:00.000-04:00

During breakfast, Sebastian told me that his tooth hurt when he chewed. My first thought was oh no, a cavity! But then he said he thought it might be loose, so I checked and it wiggled! I'm not quite sure why I am so excited about this first loose tooth, but I am. His school pictures are in about two and a half weeks, so I'm sure he'll loose the tooth right before then. I think it is so cute that he will probably have that cute little gap-toothed smile for his first school picture. And I'll get to play tooth fairy soon. Yay!!

Reservation frustration

2005-09-25T08:05:00.000-04:00

I just got off the phone with a rep from WDW a bit ago, trying to make dining reservations for x-mas eve. It was so frustrating. The guy I talked to either is extremely loud or had the volume jacked way up, so I had to hold the phone away from my ear just to be able to converse with him. And, he was really hard to understand. He must have had a hard time understanding me as well, because he kept screwing things up. He kept making the reservations for x-mas day and then would have to go back and fix it. It was pretty frustrating. Maybe he was new or something, who knows. I think I'm gonna call back this afternoon and try to talk to somebody else so that I can confirm everything is as it should be.

And, I thought we weren't able to make reservations for x-mas day until tomorrow! So I missed the chance to have the character breakfast that I wanted for that morning because by the time he got everything straightened around for x-mas eve, the place I wanted for x-mas morning was already booked. :(

I'm sorry you hate your job

2005-09-24T13:05:00.000-04:00

Dearest Husband,

I am truly sorry that you hate your job so much. Believe me, if there was any way that I could find a job making as much as you do now, I would let you quit in a heartbeat so that you could just concentrate on your last semester of school. But we've tried that already. It just ain't happening. And so I listen to your constant complaining with a smile and a nod here and there, not saying a word. Sometimes, when I'm feeling particularly mean, I just want to tell you to suck it up and deal with it for the next 2.5 monthsbecause there is nothing we can do about it. But I dare not because I know we would end up in the mother of all fights. So I'll just keep nodding and smiling and hope that the next 2.5 months go by really quickly.

Your loving wife

No longer unemployed

2005-09-20T23:23:00.000-04:00

No, not me. I am still a SAHM, thank goodness. I'm talking about Sebastian. He came home from school last week and told me he was unemployed. When I asked him what he was talking about, he said "Mom, that means I don't have a job!" Okay. I assumed he meant that he was playing house or something and somebody told him he was unemployed. But he came home from school so excited on Monday and said "Mom, I am no longer unemployed!" (his exact words) He's now employed as a flag holder. Apparently, his teacher gives the students jobs and this week it's his turn to hold the flag up, making sure it doesn't touch the floor, while the class says the pledge of allegiance. He's too funny.

2005-09-14T10:06:00.000-04:00

I talked to my mom last night and found out that my grandmother has decided she doesn't want to do anything about the spots on her lungs. She originally had scheduled her more in-depth scan for Monday, but decided last week that she wasn't going to go through with it. She said she feels good right now and so she's not going to do anything but leave it in God's hands. So I guess I have to respect her decision, but honestly, I don't like it. I know I'm being selfish because as it has been pointed out to me, if she were to go through chemo again, it could actually do more harm than good at her age. But if the cancer is back, well, I'm just not ready to lose her yet. So I'm actually kind of glad that I don't have to be back home right now, because I know I couldn't act normal around her at this point. Hopefully by the next time we go back, I'll have gotten over myself. :(

Bad day

2005-08-31T10:06:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a rough one. On top of all the emotions I went through because of Sebastian's first day of school, I found out that my Grandma Ski has not been doing well lately. She is in a nursing home and has been having episodes where she's choking a lot lately. She has these really bad coughing jags and when they occur while she's eating, she chokes. A few weeks back this happened and she ended up aspirating a piece of potato into her lung. This irritated her lung and she had to be treated for bronchitis.

Because of all this, she was give an CT scan and it showed that she has spots on her lungs. These spots weren't there 6 months ago when she had a scan, so the doctor thinks it is a fairly recent development. And though she was a smoker for many years, the doc doesn't think it's lung cancer. What he does think is that it possibly cuold be is the strain of breast cancer that she had years ago matasticizing on her lungs. Or he said it culd be something else entirely, but they won't know unless they do a more in-depth CT scan, a biopsy and some kind of bronchial scope. That is if my grandma decides she wants to do the tests. He said since she was 83, she may decide she doesn't want to do anything.

I am devestated. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer about 13 years ago, she was in good health, they caught it really quickly and all her docs said with the chemo and mastectomy, the prognosis was really good. And it worked. But now, her health isn't the greatest, her mental state isn't the best and I just don't know what is going to happen. I am so close with my grandma; she lived with us when I was little and helped raise me. And because she and I are so close, Sebastian is very close to her as well. If something were to happen to her, I just don't know how he would deal. It would be the first time somebody that he is really close to died. But I can't think about that. Right now, we just need to wait and see what she decides, if she wants to do the tests or just let it go. :(

First day of School

2005-08-30T10:51:00.000-04:00

Today was Sebastian's first day of kindergarten. I have one hour left until I get to pick him up and each minute is going by so sloooowly. He was excited but a little nervous too. I was definitely more nervous that he was. And I count it as a good thing that Hubby didn't have to come in and pry me away from Sebastian when it was time to leave the school. I walked away on my own accord. Teary, but on my own. As soon as we left the school building though, I started crying. If hubby hadn't been there, I think I would have cried my eyes out, but I felt like a big doofus, so there were only a few tears shed and lots of sniffling. I hope Sebastian is listening to his teacher and behaving. There hasn't been any calls from the school saying that he is freaking out or being a holy terror, so I am assuming all is going relatively well. I'll find out in less than an hour.

D'oh!

2005-08-25T16:14:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, I donated a couple of bags of clothes and shoes to Goodwill. I was feeling pretty good about myself, not only had I been able to clear out some of our clutter, but perhaps somebody else could benefit from it as well. Then today, I was organizing the big pile of shoes by our door to put into the new shoe rack we bought and I couldn't find my tennis shoes. I looked through the entire house, but couldn't find them. So I think I may have accidentally added them to the bag of shoes I donated to Goodwill. I am such a doofus! Hubby thinks I did it on purpose just so I could get new shoes, but really, I didn't! I have to admit though, when he brought up the idea of having to go shoe shopping, my heart did a little dance. I love shopping for shoes!!! I guess all's well that end's well. :)

my new son

2005-08-24T22:49:00.000-04:00

ya know, I always assumed by the time I was raising an 18 year old boy, I'd have already been a mom for 18 years. Not so. Hubby's nephew moved in with us on Monday and so now have another child to take care of. Frankly, this scares the hell out of me. Tonight after dinner, R. (the nephew) decided to go to the rec center to shoot some hoops. That's fine. I know he's bored sitting here in our incredibly small apartment. And Sebastian just won't leave him alone, so I can't fault him for wanting to spend some time with kids his own age. But he came back a while ago and said there was a dance tonight, part of the welcome back broo-ha-ha at WMU, and that he was going to check it out with some of the guys he's "chilling with" from the rec center. So he's now out with some people he just met and I hope to God he is being smart. He doesn't drink/smoke/do drugs so I don't worry about him too much on that level, but still, his first taste of freedom. Argh. I am going to be on pins and needles until he's back here.

My baby's growing up!

2005-08-24T09:29:00.000-04:00

In just six days, Sebastian starts kindergarten. We are both more than a little nervous about the whole thing. I keep thinking, what if he isn't ready? He is not the best listener and doesn't have the world's longest attention span. He didn't go to pre-school, just daycare for a semester, so he hasn't been around kids his age all that much. What if the other kids think he's weird because all he ever talks about is dinosaurs and they won't play with him? What if I haven't done a good enough job and he is behind the other kids academically? God, I am a nervous wreck!

And I am not the only one. Sebastian keeps waffling back and forth about school as well. One minute he is excited, the next, he wants nothing to do with kindergarten, a couple of times to the point where he was in tears about it. He seemed to really like it when he was at kindergarten orientation, so we thought it would be a good idea to take him back to the school, re-introduce him to his teacher and let him look around the classroom while there weren't a ton of other kids there. So we took him yesterday afternoon and that seems to have done the trick. He is back to being excited about going to school. He gave his teacher a hug and looked at all the cool stuff and doesn't seem to be so worried anymore.

One funny thing did happen while he was at the school. There was a picture of a dinosaur and he said that it was an Allosaurus. His teacher said, no, she was pretty sure it was a T-Rex. And our dino expert was quick to inform her that no, in fact it is an Allosaurus because it has 3 fingers on it's skinny little arms and T-Rexes only have 2. Hmm. School hasn't even started yet, and he's already putting her in her place. :)

We also went out and bought him a bunch of school clothes yesterday at Kohl's, which he was pretty excited about. I'm actually pretty geeked about it myself. I found some excellent deals, managing to get about $250 worth of clothes for only around $135. Good deal! And we ordered him a personalized Buzz Lightyear backpack online, so he is pretty much all set for his first day.

God, his first day of school, I just can't believe it! I am going to be such a blubbering mess on Tuesday! Thank goodness hubby will be there to hold my hand when we have to drop him off at school. I'm going to try and hold it together until I get back to the car because I don't want Sebastian to see me bawling like a big old baby. I'm thinking the trick is going to be to drop him off and then get the heck out of there because if I try and hang around, it's just going to be ugly. I need to stop thinking about it, I'm already getting all teary.

The Baby Urge

2005-08-11T11:02:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've been thinking about having another baby a lot. I had always said that I only wanted to have one child so that I could spoil him or her rotten. Hubby, being one of six kids, felt the same way. And even after I had Sebastian, everyone kept asking when we were going to have another one, and I kept saying, nope, one is enough.

Then somewhere around Sebastian's second birthday, I started thinking that maybe one more would be kinda nice. That little seed of a thought has just blossomed over the last three and a half years to the point where I feel so strongly about it. I really, really want to have another child. To the point where if we were to get another surprise like we did with Sebastian, I wouldn't be freaked out like I was with him. I would be feakin' ecstatic!

Unfortunately, the hubby doesn't feel the same way. For the most part, he says he is happy with our family just the way it is and doesn't want to have any more kids. But occasionally he'll toy with me. About a year ago, he told me he had been thinking that maybe after he graduated and got a good job, maybe it would be nice to have another child. Oh, I was so happy. I had something to look forward to. And then a few weeks later, he seemed to change his mind. So I try not to talk to him about it too much (as in never) for fear that he'll think I'm nagging him about it and turn him off to the idea completely.

But lately, I have that little kernal of hope again. I took a home pregnancy test yesterday because my cycles have been so wonky, I just wanted to rule out the possibility. It came out negative, but when I told hubby about it, his response was that if it was going to happen, now would be a pretty good time. What??!!?? Could he be coming around to the idea again? I had expected him to just be thankful that it wasn't positive, but he actually sounded okay with the possibility that it could happen, not anti-baby as I had presumed he would be.

In a way, I want to bring it up to him, to plant that seed with him, but I'm afraid to do it. I don't want to turn him against the idea for forever. He can be one of the "chop off the nose to spite the face" kind of people at times, and if he feels like I'm nagging or pressuring him too much, it'll make him turn from the idea even more. So I'll wait. Maybe once he's graduated and settled into a good job, he'll be open to talking about having more kids. I certainly hope so.

Getting a new roomie

2005-07-24T16:37:00.000-04:00

Hubby's 18 year old nephew will be moving in with us shortly. He has decided to go to Western and we said he could stay with us rather than in a dorm or apartment so he can save some money. He's really a wonderful kid and I'm glad to be able to give him this opportunity because I know he hasn't always had it easy growing up.

Still, this was all decided rather quickly, all within the last 2-3 weeks and now I'm starting to get a bit nervous. Not because I think he will cause any trouble or anything, but because it's change and I always get a little antsy around change. And I'm just so used to it being the three of us here in our little tiny apartment.

Our little apartment is part of the problem. We only have 2 bedrooms, so Ryan will be rooming with our 5 year old. We are going out on Tuesday to look for bunk beds. I hope this is not a mistake. It was either bunk on the couch or with Bubba, and Ryan seems cool with sharing a room with Bubba. I don't think he'll be spending all that much time in there, mostly just sleeping, but still, I think it's going to be hard on them both, not having their own space. I guess we'll just take it day by day and if it's not working out, we'll have to come up with something else.

The other thing that worries me is the fact that he's, well, an 18 year old boy, full of raging hormones getting away from his parents for the first time. Hubby already had to have a modified version of "the talk" with him. It really blows my mind to think that this boy that I have known since he was 6 and watched grow up, is sexually active. It's too much. But it's reality I guess. I have to say that I'm glad hubby had the talk with Ryan, rather than me.

Again, I guess we're just going to have to take it one day at a time and hope for the best.

What's a sperm?

2005-07-06T19:20:00.000-04:00

That is what Sebastian asked me a few minutes ago. I know he is a very smart and naturally curious kid, but it still gives me a momentary shock whenever he pops up with a question like that. He's watching a program on Animal Planet, which is what prompted the question, althought I was in the bathroom when sperm scene came on, so I'm not exactly sure what the context was. I told him that a sperm is something that helps to make a baby, figuring if he wanted to know more, I would try and answer his questions as simply and honestly as possible. But that first answer seemed to satisfy him for the time being, so I'm just going to leave it at that for the time being as well. But I could hear the monologue running through my head "when a mommy and daddy love each other very much..." Thank goodness we didn't have to get into that. Although knowing this kid of mine, I'm sure we'll have more questions in the very near future. Probably at a very inapropriate time, like when we're having dinner with the folks or while we're visiting my grandma at the nursing home. Sebastian is nothing if not predictable.

waiting for the other shoe to drop

2005-07-04T12:54:00.000-04:00

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I have become quite the pessimist in the last few years. I never used to be this way, and I must say, I don't particularly care for it. But I can't get past the feeling lately like things are going too well, therefor, something bad is going to happen to mess everything up. It seems like that has been the constant pattern in the past few years. Every time we thought we were finally getting everything on track, some kind of crisis would come along. Usually in the form of a relative being hospitalized, car problems, or even worse, the time it was stolen from right in front of our apartment. Or some kind of school or job related problem or an unexptected monetary crisis that would drain our hard-earned savings. It just seemed like there was always something going on.

I think that is why I have been so worried and antsy lately. I don't quite know what to do with myself when we aren't in the middle of some kind of crisis. Things are going so well lately. Pat graduates in December and without sending out a single resume, he already has 3 job prospects lined up. I have the most incredible son whom I love more and more each day. My relationship with Patrick is absolutely the best and strongest it has been in the nearly 12 years that we have been together. We aren't struggling to pay our bills and even have a little left over to do fun family stuff.

And yet, I can't get away from the fear that something is going to come along and ruin this peaceful zone we currently find ourselves in. It would certainly fit in with the previous pattern of our lives. Pat says maybe we are finally getting a break. Maybe. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Aargh, now not only am I a pessimist, but a whiny pessimist. This sucks.

What is it about little boys and toilets?

2005-07-01T15:11:00.000-04:00

It's getting to the point where I don't feel like I can leave Sebastian alone in the bathroom anymore. I thought we were way past the point where I had to worry about him playing in the toilet, but apparently we're not. What's different about it this time is that he knows what he's doing is wrong where as before it was more just natural curiousity.

Take today for example. After going pee, he thought it would be a good idea to take one of his bath toys, a little fishie that soaks up water then squirts it out, and use it to soak up some pee and then squirt said pee around the toilet. What was he thinking? And just the other day I walked in on him playing with the flushable wipe that he had used to wipe his bum, dunking it up and down in the nasty water and squashing it between his hands. Nastiness!

Yet he knows what he is doing is wrong. When I ask him if he thinks that was a good choice or a bad choice, he tells me it was a bad one. So when I ask him why he decided to do it even though he knew it was a bad choice, I get "because I felt like it." Good lord, if I hear "because I felt like it" one more time, I think I'm gonna start pulling my hair out. Yes child, I understand that you are 5 and are trying to assert your independence. But could we please do it somewhere other than the nastiness of the toilet!!

Disney World, Here We Come!

2005-06-30T09:38:00.000-04:00

We've booked our vacation to DW for this December! I am so excited!! Well, at first I was more nervous than excited because of all the money involved in a ten day trip, but now I've moved on to excited. We'll be going the week before x-mas and coming back on the 27th. I'm sure my parents are going to be thrilled about that. Not that we usually get home for x-mas day because of work schedules and such, but this is a little different. Oh well, they have 6 months to get used to the idea.

We're flying down this time too, which scare the crap out of me. I've never been on a plane before and I'm pretty sure that my clausterphobic, motion-sickness, worry-wort self is going to be completely wigged out. I have a strong feeling that my 5 year old is going to be able to handle it a lot better than I am. I'm thinking the key to getting through the flight with my sanity in tact is going to be lots of Dramamine. And maybe some vodka.

I ordered a couple of guide books from amazon yesterday to help with the planning. I've never planned such a big vacation by myself before, so this is all a little daunting. I want to get everything just right, but there are just so many decisions! And I so suck at having to make decisions.

One decision that I have already made though is to actually get off my butt and start excercising instead of just saying that I'm gonna do it. Especially since I checked out the specs on the plane we will be flying on and found out that the width of the seats is 16.7 inches. And while I can problably squeeze my ample rear end into the seat, I don't particularly care to sit that way for 4 or 5 hours. I'm sure that would probably only add to my clausterphobia. And I really don't want to be hauling all this extra weight around the parks either, so my goal is to lose at least 50 pounds by the time we go. I'm thinking it's quite possible if I buckle down. The hubbie has also expressed a desire to shed some poundage before we go, so if we stick together, hopefully we can pull it off. Bye-bye dill pickle chips and Ben & Jerry's, hello veggies and lean protein. No more using the eliptical glider to throw clothes over. Healthy living, here I come!

The First Post

2005-06-29T22:38:00.000-04:00

Well, here it is. My very first post in my brand spankin' new blog. I guess a bit of background information about me and my family might be nice. I'm 27, a stay at home mom, married to my high school sweetie Patrick. We have a 5 year old son, Sebastian who is absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs. This child knows more about dinosaurs than any kid his age has a right to. And he can talk for hours about them. My dad affectionately calls him Dr. Gellar, our future paleontologist, because of the way he lectures on his favorite subject.

Have I mentioned that he's just a tad bit stubborn? I'm trying to get him ready for kindergarten in the fall and he's fighting me every step of the way. Today, when I was trying to get him to practice his phone number and address, he told me he doesn't want to have to think about numbers ever again. And he doesn't want to learn anything ever again either. Ah, the joys of raising a 5 year old. It used to be cute when he was little and he'd get a little stubborn. Now, not so much.