Twelve

We haven't had any babies around here for a long time, and that's been cool. Our family is awesome just how it is. Yesterday, though, I kind of wished we had some short people running around.

You see, my baby turned 12 yesterday.



With her big sister getting ready to turn 14 later in the year, it's clear to me that I might not be ready for these girlies to spread their wings as soon as they might want. In fact, that are both preparing to spend almost the entire summer away from us, their parents. Bella is going to a horse camp in Utah with a friend and Madeline is riding along so she can be dropped off in Arizona with their Sauls side of the family, and then she will FLY HOME ALONE. o_O

I guess I better be getting ready for those girls to fly.

Double Digits, again

Isabella turned 10 last week. *sigh*

One of the drawbacks to 1) only having two kiddos and 2) having those two kiddos so close together is that not long after marvelling that "the first one" has hit a certain milestone is having "the last one" hit that same milestone soon after. Don't mind me, I'll just be over in the corner mournfully singing Sunrise, Sunset.

We only do BIG parties for three special birthdays- when they turn 8, 12, and 16. But last year we started inviting a few friends over for dinner and to spend the night. So the ear-busting squealing and shrieking you heard last Friday night was coming from our house.

The weather was nice enough that we ate pizza and cake outside on the patio.


I'm not sure why Bella was wearing her green OZ sunglasses, but it's her birthday, so I guess she can wear what she wants.


Nana and Jed came over to drop cousin Catie off. Jed's choice in sunglass wear was just as odd as Bella's.


Once the mosquitos descended, we came back inside to open presents.






Nana and Jed had to leave after we opened the presents (because heaven forbid Mom drive at night, or worse, let JED drive!). The preteen girls tried there best to keep him, but he finally escaped. I' pretty sure he wanted to to stick around. The girls settled in for the night to watch movies and eat me out of house and home. They all left (except Catie, who was spending the weekend with us) by 11:00 the next morning, and I've spent all week trying to get the house back in order.

The End

Shoes

When I was in Sixth Grade, my mom bought me a pair of electic blue high tops that were AWESOME in every way imaginable.



See? Awesome. They looked like Coverse All Stars (I wouldn't discover those lovelies until high school), but they were actually Keds. I loved those shoes. They were obnoxiously bright. This was a shade of blue not seen in nature. I was always being asked, "WHERE did you get those SHOES??!!??" (Sometimes with with shock, sometimes with awe. ;D I'm pretty sure my grandmother hated them.)

I remember they were only $5 or $10- some ridiculously cheap clearance price- which is probably the main reason why Mom bought them. I know it wasn't because I needed them. I know for a fact that I had other tennis shoes because I was *heavily* Tretorns at the time, and those babies weren't cheap! Anyway- I wore the heck out those shoes until I sadly outgrew them in 7th grade.

It's because of this that I didn't hesitate *too much* when Madeline told me a few weeks ago that she wanted a pair of these:


BRIGHT doesn't begin to describe these babies. The picture doesn't do them justice. Again, not a color found in nature. And my baby girl wears them with bright pink shoelaces. She knows the power of brightly colored shoes.

(And the fact that she needed a pair of green, brown or black tennis shoes for her OZ costume only helped justify the purchase. Why buy black or brown when you can have shocking electric lime?)

Oh, yes. Isabella will be sporting pink combat boots before, during and after her OZ performances. She wants some real Doc Martens, but she has to save her pennies for those.

What can I say?? These girlies know the power of awesome shoes.

All the news that's fit to print

ACHTUNG! Bullet Point Numero Three contains some salty language, but it's totally in context. But I figured I'd give y'all heads up if you want to skip it, but I'm warning you- you're missing out on a polarious story if you do.

1. Next week is our last week of total freedom. BOO! The preschool teachers are back on the 10th (with the kids coming back on the 17th) and the girls start back on the 14th. All the school supplies have been purchased and sorted into backpacks, and we're already thinking of First Day of School outfits.

2. Despite the fact that I've been out in the sun regularly all summer, somehow I still managed to get a sunburn yesterday. What's up with that, Mother Nature?

3. Bella has become (somewhat) enamored of the word 'bitch'. It started a few weeks ago when we were listening to DH in the car, and she said that Molly's line to Bellatrix )"Not my daughter, you bitch!!") was her favorite part of the story, and then she proceeded to scream out said line. (It was seriously polarious.)

So James and I explained that it wasn't a nice word to say and that she shouldn't go around saying it, but we tried to explain why Molly Weasley would have used that word in the context of the story. She thought about it for a moment and said, "Oh, okay. But I thought Molly had just combined the words "Bellatrix" and "witch" and then called her a 'bitch'. I thought it was pretty funny." To which James and I had to give her props for such clever thinking.

4. This Pop Candy post had me LOL-ing all over the place, and now I kinda-sorta want to go to a Gwar concert, just to say that I have.

5. For the third month in a row, our power bill has stayed below $200! YAY!!! That has never happened the whole time we have lived in Albany, and that's also *with* the Georgia Power rate hike that happened earlier in the year. We've been careful with the electricity, but not overly so. The only thing we can chalk it up to is our new roof, so YAY for that. We have just one more month to get through before the rates drop after the summer, and typically our August bill is lower than May, June or July's so I'm feeling optimistic.

Happy Birthday, Isabella!

Nine years ago today our sweet girl made her way into this world, appropriately on the first day of Spring. She is the sunshine in our family, and we love her so much.

Four months


Nine months


18 months


4 years old


6 years old


7 years old


8 years old


Almost 9 years old

Update

As I posted on Facebook yesterday afternoon, I'm cautiously optimistic.

Bella seems to be doing better today, and the doctor thinks she is finally on the mend. (It's only taken three different antibiotics- shots and oral- two different inhaled medicines, and two different steroids -again both shots and oral!) She slept good last night for the first time in over a week. Obviously she is still very tired and still coughing, but I'm hopeful that we've found the right combo.

The trick now is keeping her moving in the right direction! I didn't know this until the doctor told me, that steroids depress the immune system making you even more susceptible to whatever disease is lurking around. So we've got to be careful about easing her back into school. He said if she is feeling great one day, give her *another* full day of recovery before sending her back to school, just to be safe. As of right now, I'd say the soonest she'd be back is Friday, and I may just give her the weekend to be on the safe side!

But I want to thank you ALL for your thoughts, prayers and well-wishes. I know that it has made a difference, and I am so very grateful for all of you.

What day is it??

Bella isn't doing so well, folks. After repeat trips to the doctor's office yesterday and today for antibiotic and steroid shots, we're aren't any better off than when we started last Wednesday.

The doctor said if she was any younger he would have already admitted her to the hospital and put her in an oxygen tent. However, his fear is that she will pick something *else* up in the hospital and just make everything worse. So we are giving it another 24 hours at home with three new, stronger medicines (another antibiotic, an oral steroid, and a new medicine for her nebulizer). We are also avoiding any contact with the outside world (snow flurries! Today! In south Georgia! Crazy!) as much as possible. I trust our pediatrician, and he feels she's really on the edge and it could go either way. Sooooo....we wait, we rest and we pray.

*Sigh*

1. Isabella woke up around 4:30 with a high fever and started vomit ting. So she and I trouped back to the doctor (after I called them yesterday when her fever was higher than the day before, and after being on the antibiotic for over 24 hours, to which they told me it can take up to 72 hours for the meds to kick in so not to worry), went through several blood tests and X-Rays only to find out that my poor girl has strep, a sinus infection AND pneumonia.

So we are now the proud owners of a nebulizer. How is it that I made it through 31 years of life, plus 10.5 years of motherhood never, ever having to have/do breathing treatments, only to have 2009 hit and have both myself AND one of my children need them??? It truly boggles the mind. So we'll do breathing treatments every for hours for the next three days. Poor Bella. For some reason, the medicine used in the breathing treatment always gives you the shakes real bad, and you feel all anxious and jittery. When the treatment is over she really does look like a skinny, strungout crack head.

She also got two antibiotic shots, one in each leg (rendering her unable to walk, which meant I got to carry her, her water bottle, the nebulizer, my purse and her "I Stood Still During My X-Ray" goodie bag on the five mile trek out to the car). You can imagine how excited she was about the shots. Even better, we get to go back for the next two days for MORE shots! You would think, her being almost 9 and all, that she would understand the need for shots. But NO- she still looked at me with her big, sad puppy dog eyes welling over with tears with a look that said, "HOW CAN YOU LET THEM DO THIS TO ME??!?!??"

*sighs again*

2. The bathroom has been primed (twice) and it ready for new white paint. Perhaps by Sunday we'll be able to use it again. Hallelujah.

What Kind of Day It Has Been (so far)

Today I have:

- woken up late (7:00 am as opposed to 6:15) thanks to James accidentally turning off my alarm

- looked at Bella and decide that her cold has probably turned into a sinus infection

- chased down the bus (which involved driving like a mad woman, flipping a u-turn on a four lane road and catching the bus on its VERY LAST STOP before heading up to the schools)

- ran the garbage can down to the curb before the garbage man arrived (All James' fault again, as he forgot to take it down last night. Although I choose to forgive him for this offense as he was busy caulking the bathrrom last night, step #487 in the Bathroom Remodel The Never Ends).

- made a call to the doctor to get Bella an appointment (10:15)

- checked the bank account to make sure I have enough in there to pay the co-pay, pay for a prescription, and pay a little extra on the bill since we haven't met our dedeuctible for the year yet

- searched the Georgia PINES Online Catalog for library books to order to read to Isabella's third grade class on Read Across America Day. (My frantic searching is my own stupd fault, though, as I vaguely remember signing up to be a reader sometime back in January, but I didn't write down the actual date, just noting that it was sometime in March, which was still months away. So now I'm trying to find Books that aren't chapter books (they don't want us to read anything that we can't finish) that are appealing to 3rd graders and that will also fill 30 minutes of my assigned reading time. I'm leaning toward some Shel Silverstein or Jack Prelutsky poetry along with a short story of some sort.

- discovered all of the neat ideas on the NEA website for Read Across America Day and decided I need to print off some of those ideas for preschool on Monday

- made this blog post, and it's only 9:02 AM

I am ON FIRE!

For Isabella, Who Keeps Us On Our Toes

I changed my Facebook profile picture the other day, and Katheryn asked me who drew it. Well, the story behind the picture is too good not to share.

When she was in first grade Isabella's art class at school was studying the work of the artist Grant Wood (of American Gothic fame).


The art teacher told the children that they were going to draw their own picture in the Grant Wood 'style'. Isabella was *very* excited about this project, and was even MORE excited when her picture was chosen to hang up in the main hallway of the school.

I went up to the school at the first ooportunity to see her picture. Amid the pictures of 'Grant Wood' dogs and cats and people, Isabella had chosen to draw Grant Wood Vampires.



Complete with blood dripping from the teeth and "crazy eyes".

Someday, I'm going to have the picture framed because it is just too good NOT to frame! For now, it's my Facebook profile pic, and it makes me smile everytime I see it.

It never goes away, but it all works out

I just uploaded some pictures from my camera only to find out that I haven't done that since before Madeline's birthday! Oops. I was wondering where the pictures from Madeline's birthday had ended up!

Speaking of Madeline, this was her yesterday about this time:



Poor kid. She has croup AND strep! Whoever heard of a ten year old having croup? She never had it as a baby. She sounds terrible- barky cough and no voice, not to mention a sore throat and wonky stomach from the strep. Hooray for antibiotics! Hopefully she'll be able to go back to school tomorrow.

We've also had to cancel our trip to Disney World. :( You want to be at 100% for Disney, and there's just no way Madeline will be there in time for us to leave on Saturday. We're disappointed, really disappointed, but we're trying to make the best of it.

In other exciting news, Bella got her top braces on yesterday!



She still has to wear her retainer/spreader for another two months. We have a good time trying to figure what she's trying to say, because she really does sound like she has a bunch of marbles in her mouth.

And with that thought, I'll leave you with a preview of Madeline's birthday pictures.

Isabella's first post

Hi I am Isabella. I am funny, cute, and smart. I love my friends and famliy.