Tomorrow is the Zoo

I would just post on it tomorrow but something even more exciting than the zoo is tomorrow. It is Elijah's First Birthday. (Wow, I have a lot that I need to get done tonight.)

But back to the Zoo thing.

I love the zoo. I really, really love the polar bears. I have two very large photos of the polar bears from the Brookfield zoo in my bathroom. I have the polar bears from the Detroit zoo on a blanket that I use year round. I have a polar bear from the build-a-bear zoo in my closet that I received when BJ and I got engaged. And now The Brookfield zoo has a new bear enclosure that I am thrilled to see. I also can't wait to show Elijah the size of a real live giraffe and an elephant. Oh I'm soo excited. I'm going to the ZOO and more important, Elijah will be one. And it wont be a day to worry or think about the work stuff right now. I hope this is something that we can do yearly on his birthday.

And as far as my list for birthday things goes...Brett's birthday gift is still not here, my mom's birthday gift arrived today, still haven't washed any of Elijah's gifts, made a small list of food for the party, still have not bought any of the food, and the house is semi clean. One thing I needed to add to the list. Pray like mad that the weather is nice this weekend. Because I really don't have enough room in my house for everyone to come in. If it rains we will all be packed in our garage, our neighbors garage and playing in the rain.

Well that sucked!

Today I resigning from my job. However, it didn't go over the way I had imagined it in my head. It created A LOT of stress in my, my boss, and even more my student. I kept trying to re-assure her that no matter what happened she will be able to complete her placement. I just hope I didn't scare her too much.



Oh Keri, you missed a lot today, but I am glad you were not there because I wouldn't want to stress you out this way. Instead I stress myself out thinking about you and Lindsey ALL DAY LONG.

Happy Fathers Day

I know that all of everything today has been about Fathers and how much we love them. Well this post is no different. I love my hubby and in the last 12 months he has really been a stand up daddy. He loves his little boy so very much, and I love him more and more every day. As we watch Elijah get older and more independent we keep talking about how much fun it will be when we get to do...

All in all, I love me hubby, I love Elijah's daddy and I love my dad too!

Happy Birthday Brett

Today, my lovely brother turned 22. if I was concerned at all about his ability to live through his first legal year of drinking, they are all gone now. Since today was major picture day here we took some extra pictures just for Brett, because we all know how much he loves Elmo, here is his current favorite nephew in his favorite cartoon character.

On another note. Another professional photographer disappointed me today. We had Elijah's professional pictures scheduled today and when we got there Elijah was a little sleepy but he is a great kid so I figured we had about 20-30 minutes of great pictures for the baby. We started out and did about 20 minutes of great pictures. Then another photographer came in and asked our photographer if her flash was on. Guess what! It wasn't! That's right the great pictures, just blackness. After about 3 more minutes Elijah was done with pictures and just wanted to be held. I was very annoyed. We got some really cute ones though and we spent a small fortune, but some of the ones that were taken before were better and that makes me sad. So once again, something important I paid extra money for to capture on film was not captured.

One year ago...

I headed off to the doctor to beg them to give me a doctors note saying I was too big to work. I begged them. No problem it was one of my preferred Doctors and he did it with no questions asked. I new at that point that I would be home for a very long time with just one more day of work. It was a good day.

Let the Birthday Maddness BEGIN!!

Every year this happens, now it is that much more involved. For the next 14 days my life gets a bit overwhelming with showing love for people close to me. It's about the 16th of June that I realize, "Hmmm...Brett's birthday is in 3 days. I should get his present." So I start thinking of Brett's birthday. On the 17th I realize the 20th is BJ's first fathers day and I need to do something for him too. The 18th I realize I still haven't bought Brett's gift and I need to get on that like ASAP. The 19th YOU SAY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY!!! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TOO YEAH!!!! I Call up the Little bro and sing him a happy birthday. I then apologize for his birthday gift not being here yet. I then realize Fathers day is Sunday and need to get on getting BJ something to tell him how much of a wonderful daddy he is. I then think about my own father. "I really love him too. I need to be sure I get him something too." I then have to think about how in the world I'm going to get all this done in less than 24 hours. Oh shoot...Elijah's 1 year pictures are at 11:30, quick everyone in the car. "BJ wipe the lunch out of Elijah's hair." Maybe while were at JCPenny's I will get my shopping done. Third Sunday in June I call all fatherly figures and tell them exactly how much I love them and how much they mean to me. Beg my Hubby to go to the pool with his little boy. The 21st I realize Elijah's birthday is in 2 days I need to wash all his gifts that were bought at garage sale and wrap them. I also need to get everything ready set for his party on the weekend. Oh shoot, the party, Uh... guess I need to get food for that day. Hmm... My cooking skills. 22nd still thinking about my cooking skills and the food for the day. Sandwiches are starting to look real good. Maybe fruit salad too. Hmm... good idea. 23rd YOU SAY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY!!!! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TOO YEAH!!!! Let's go to the zoo. No cares in the world but lots of love for the baby who is not so much a baby anymore. 24th, "How many days until the party??? We need to get the food!" 25th up until who knows when to get everything ready for the party tomorrow. 26th last minute cleaning straightening and organizing and planning. Not so baby, baby goes down for his nap, all our families show up, we party like it's the year 2000. 2:00 not so baby, baby goes down for afternoon nap and (cross fingers) everyone heads home. Baby sleeps we clean up after the party, head to the pool, and chill. 27th Were glad the party is over and were going boating. Goodness I hope Elijah likes/handles the life vest for the day. 28th YOU SAY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY!!!! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TOO YEAH!!! (Wait a minute, When did I get so old. Happy Golden birthday to me!) 29th OH my goodness mom's birthday is...um...in two days. Glad I bought her gift on the 19th... I did right??? If not out to the store I run. 30th Gotta remember to call mom tomorrow, gotta remember to call mom tomorrow, CALL MOM TOMORROW! 1st YOU SAY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY!!!! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TOO YEAH!!! Thank goodness it's done for one more year. I hope I didn't forget anything.

Sad part now, I will be printing this out tomorrow at work and use it as a check list to get through the next 14 days.

Working families

Here is a question for families that have kids and both parents work. I am toying with the idea of changing some work hours but that would mean working late, late, two nights a week. I would most likely be getting home after the baby is asleep. One it will put stress on the fact that I will be missing some of the only hours/minutes with my boy but at the same time will put stress on the house because that would be giving BJ more things he will need to do. So more or less how do you other families (mostly mommies) deal with all the nights away from home? Let me know.

One year ago...

One year ago today, I woke up at the same time I did every night between 1 and 2 am and made my nightly trip to the living room couch. By this time in my pregnancy I was so used to being awake when the rest of the world was asleep that this wasn't anything new to me. However, all those darn birthing classes said, when the contraction are less than 5 minutes apart for over an hour you should come in. So at 5:00 am I wake up my hubby and let him know we needed to go visit the hospital. We headed off to the hospital where I spent the next 5 or 6 hours being monitored at the hospital because the put me on my back for over 30 minutes and my blood pressure went through the roof and I had to be monitored for the next couple of hours and have a million test run to make sure I was a-okay. I was and home I went. I went back to work on Wednesday.

GOLF

I decided on my way to work today that I would like to learn how to golf...Actually I know how to golf, I just don't do it very well. So correction, I would like to go golfing and not have lots of people sooo annoyed at me for being on the 3rd hole tee and hitting my ball onto the 8th hole green. Or being the person that shoots a 200 on 9 holes. I think most of the people on the golf course would get over the stupid girl that doesn't know how to golf and is waisting all their time, but my hubby would have the most difficulty with it. I thought up a social story to help with this situation.

My name is BJ. I love my wife.

I wish my wife was more into playing sports. I would be willing to teach her sports.

Sometimes people do not pick sports quickly like me.I need to have lots and lots and lots of patients with my wife. I love my wife very much.

I know that my wife tries hard to hit the ball where I tell her to, but I know it will never go in that direction.

I understand that sometimes playing something means that you don't have to be good at it.

I love my wife.I'm glad she tries. Next time maybe we will just go mini golfing.

Oh and no worries about being stuck behind me on the golf course, I don't even have clubs.

One year ago...

Where were you one year ago today?? I don't know everything about one year ago but I remember a portion of ti and for that matter that is really all that counts. One year ago this was me...I was working 40 hour weeks. I was wearing my husbands shorts and shirt because apparently none of my own clothing (including my maternity stuff) did not fit me. My feet were so swollen they looked like footballs attached to my little legs. My legs were swollen and I had stretch marks all up and down them. I had a giant baby in my belly and i was super uncomfortable. A year ago tomorrow I spent most of my day with the nurses at CDH thinking I was in labor. WRONG, just wishful thinking.

If you can't already tell this is a semi-count down to the 1 year birthday of my little man.

And for all of you wondering when the next one might be showing up. I need to completely forget the pain I was in that last couple of weeks, and the sleepless nights before BJ and I discuss the next one.

Bye Bye Baghera

A week and a day ago I bought my moms car. Thus leaving us with three cars in a household where only two of us have the ability to drive. We placed our car on the Internet and sold it tonight. I miss it. Now I need to figure out what I should name my new car. So here is my car one last time. It was a good car except for that incident in Feb. which I am still trying to resolve. But now that we sold the car we can pay off some personal family loans. Thanks parents for that help!

FINALLY

First of all...made some changes to the blog can you tell??? Do you like?

Second of all...So flipping glad the Blackhawks won last night. For many reasons. Mainly because, a sport that mainly involves ICE should not last longer than the Ice caps themselves. Second, I enjoy the fact that now IN MID JUNE we can finally start enjoying baseball (mind you my team isn't doing so well) but either way. And now that they FINALLY won the Stanly Cup I can now talk about it. It was getting a bit "inconvenient" for our family. I mean really, we have to be in by 7:00 to watch the puck drop every 2-3 days. However, it was nice to have nap time between periods one and three. Plus now that this is all done, I can finally list my car and get it sold. Just because we have to be more open to sell it. Yippy!

Tell me the truth though, do you like this layout/background or should I go back the other way? I don't know

Sounds!

Today at work I read Mr. Brown can Moo! Can You? Got me thinking. I know dangerous. I could write a book about the sounds I hear at work. At least I would know that most of my kiddos would be able to make the sounds. So here is the list of sounds I hear at work:

Farting

Burping

Raspberries

Sneezing

Snot being shot out of a child's nose

Coughing

Fingers in nose searching for gold

Fingers/whole hand in mouth

Hiccuping

Crying

Screaming

Stomping feet

Clapping hands

Spitting

Cars/Trucks driving

Monsters

I could be just as famous as Dr. Seuss. I would just have to get someone to make some really colorful pictures for the book.

Look I'm a fish: by Elijah

(Sorry I don't know why some pictures are tiny. I am only 11 months old you know)

Two weeks ago Grandma wanted to take me to feed the ducks but it was hotter than the oven outside and we couldn't go. So that Sunday Daddy thought we could go down town to the river and feed the ducks in our town. So Mommy got a bag from the cold box that had been in there for my whole life and we drove down to the river. Once there Mommy said the water was going too fast and there were no ducks. (I think she was blind because there was a really really big duck behind her, Daddy called it a goose, he doesn't know anything!) We finally found two duckies but two kids chased them away with a stick before we could feed them. Then we went to the little river were there were big kids catching frogs and tadpoles and things. Mommy said we could go in so we did. I was like a fish. But I really wanted to crawl in the creak and not walk. Mommy said no. I found an island and named in after me. Baby Elijah Island. Then on the way home we stopped to get ice cream. That was the best part! It was super yummy!

(This picture is sooo old, I don't know why mommy used it)

The garage sale is done!

Wahoo! Another great year of our church's garage sale! This year I spent 6 10-12 hour days working, and two evenings of 3-4 hours working. I got a ton of new clothes for Elijah, all of Elijah's birthday and Christmas gift. The church made somewhere around $33,000 in dollars (before expenses) which was about what we made last year. Fantastic! The down side this year Thursday I started getting a scratchy voice and I knew what was coming. Friday I was up at 5:30, and realized...I could not talk louder than a true whisper. I mean completely turn off your voice and start talking. That kind of whisper. Yes, for real the craziest, busies, loudest day of the garage sale I had no voice. I did lots of pointing and basic number sign for just about everyone. Yes, awesome. Day two, half price day, I had about half my voice that day which was sooo much better. And super big thanks to my dad and Kelly! They took Elijah for us so we could spend our weekend with church and we could go home that Friday night and crash with out having to worry about a little one. It was wonderful.

The crazy part of the whole thing...we waited until half price day then went at it to shop for our daycare provider. We got her some wooden puzzles and found an extra pack-n-play for her. We bought it, walked it to the car and poof...GONE. We can't find it for the life of us. Now mind you in 2 days time we spend 18 hours working and we very possibly went into brain failure and who knows where that thing ended up. Oh well.

I have not died

I promise, I have not died. I'm just super busy with Garage sale, I want to sleep when I get home and not blog. I promise I will be back in about a week. It is also hard because the weather is sooo perfect I don't want to be inside much.

P.S. We will be selling my car in the near near near future. Want to buy it??

My first day of Garage Sale

First of all, Rescue just farted and I am in too much pain and too tired to more away.

Second I took today off of work so I could work at the OSLC garage sale. However, Elijah had a fever and is getting to the end stages of a cold today but he is happy right and eating and sleeping fine. Okay last night was not so fine but other than that. Thank goodness I love my daycare so much and they still took him.

Dear Lord, the dog keeps farting, It's like one endless fart that just keeps going and going and going. Blah!

Third I convinced my neighbor to join me and she was awesome help, All those Bratz dolls are now clothed in church appropriate attire and she helped out significantly with the animal crisis.

Fourth, I am SOOOOO soar. Standing on the concert floor all day long hurts, and now my hips, knees and back are aching. However, one thing I have learned over the years is, every day you go, you have to wear a different pair of sneakers so there is different areas of pressure on your feet and body.

Garage sale scores to this point:
Several books for me
Several books for Elijah
Several books for work
Two choices of winter coats for Elijah, Daddy will have the final say
Snow pants for Elijah
Cute little nativity toy (really awesome church toy)- It will go great with the Noah's arc that we have now. I love it sooooo much.
Fisher Price Little people Stable (birthday or Christmas gift, not sure yet)

I really want to work tomorrow night too, but I think my hubby might want me to come home and see him once in a while. I don't know.

Why are cars so much money??

Let's talk about cars. First of all they cost a small fortune to buy new. Why does a bunch of metal, plastic and cloth cost so much money. 20,000 for a small crappy new car. Great! Then if anything on that nice car breaks it costs another small fortune to fix. I have to say, if I got paid $50 bucks an hour for service I would not be complaining about my car. And why, does a car just get worth less as the time goes buy but the cost to fix it goes up??? Why does a car even really need a transmission? or belts, or oil or I don't know, gaskets?? I have decided that the stinking cars are one of those things you cant live without if your going to live at all.

Beguira and Mikey...BITE ME- but please, please, please don't break anymore!

On another note, Elijah has had his first experience with conjunctivitis of the eye. Rock on! Good week.

11 months

Wow, I can't believe Elijah is 11 months old today. I can remember exactly what I was doing one year ago today. I was as huge as a house, as comfortable as as the Princes who slept on a pea, and was at a good friends wedding. Let me just tell you all, if you are preggers there is nothing on the face of the planet that makes you look bigger than you really are than a dress. I even tried to use the whole color thing to my advantage, I wore black. Yeah good for the whole overall effect of it, not so awesome at an outdoor wedding. (tried to find the one picture of the day, no luck, Bummer.) Either way 12 months later I now have a very cute, very big, little boy. Our day started with a big poopy diaper, and a quick shower with daddy. Then I gave our boy a little hair trim around the ears, I only have a couple of years where I can make sure the has a great hair cut before he decides he wants to chose his hair style.Then BJ spiked his hair. We picked out a cute outfit from Auntie Katie and off to church we went. Elijah sat so well during church, and didn't have to be taken out once. It was great. Then we headed to Phillip's Park Zoo as a trial run for his birthday in one month. We had a picnic lunch, and looked at several animals. All in all, Elijah did great, we just need to work out a system for keeping him cool on these hot days. But he did let us put sunscreen on him so no worries about a bright red baby tomorrow. We came home, Elijah and I both took a 2 hour nap while the Blackhawks won! Wahoo. Then off to dinner with the neighbors, bath and bed.

I am very lucky to have such a wonderful little boy, he even snuggled with me for a bit tonight before bed which typically he will scream and cry. I love the baby he is but every day I see a cute toddler trying to surface. I just hope he keeps his wonderful attitude and personality, then maybe they won't be so terrible.

Can't wait for next Thursday

I have to say as much work, pain and sleepless nights go into the OSLC garage sale, it comes at the perfect time every year. About this time every year I get sooo done with all my kids. Even the ones I love. As I was cleaning up my room today I realized why this is.

1. The weather is getting nicer and as the kiddos play outside more they decide to bring the dirt in to therapy with them. Ground into their clothes, under their finger nails, on their shoes, under their toes in their sandals which they insist they must take off.

2. The weather is initiating may spring time colds or allergies and every single little nose in the clinic is drippy, crusty or stuffy. Fantastic, I spend more time going between the Kleenex box, garbage can, and germ-x, than I do actually treating.

3. School is almost out, and so are almost all of the school aged kids brains. They are so checked out of therapy and life unless it is time to play, getting anything functional done is just a joke.

4. It's half way through the year, therefore all the kids who have scripts/reports due every 2, 3, or 6 months are due. Um.. yeah, that is just about all but 2 kids on my caseload right now.

5. it is really hard to sit inside and watch the beautiful weather pass by while I am stuck inside with all the above mentioned kids.

6. It's the time of year for sticky snacks. Ice cream, Popsicles, juice boxes for kids learning how to drink from them, juicy fruit, the list goes on. Many parents, me being one of them, think that now that the weather is nice you can take this wonderful snack/dessert and eat it outside, 5 hours later we are remembering we need to go somewhere and realize that half of the snack and the dirt in the back yard is now stuck to your face, hair, hands, and clothing. Oh well, no time to change, guess we will just have to deal with it.

7. I get burnt out on all the games we play. I try my hardest to pick one game and play it all week long, that means that I could play Trouble, or Sorry, or what ever game is special that week 30+ times. Yes, it is pretty awesome that I get paid to play games all day long but I can promise you we do not have 52 different games in the clinic and some of the younger kid games (i.e. barnyard bingo, or Mr. Potato head) get played almost every week. AHHHHH BURN OUT!

Therefore, I am very much looking forward to spending just about 50 hours at the garage sale cleaning, going through gross stuffed animals, moldy toys and broken pieces, these next two weeks on top of the time that I will be at work, just because I will not be SLP work!

O'hare Towing

This all started in my nights of insomnia when I was preggers. Since I couldn't sleep, and there was nothing to do on the Internet, and the options for TV were slim I turned to com cast onDemand to keep me busy. The problem, I got addicted to so many shows during that time it wasn't even funny. However, one of my ultimate favorites was a show called Wrecked. Mostly because it was all about a very large towing company in the Chicago suburbs. I fell in love with the show. I even looked for it this season, but never found it. And plus since it was something filmed in Chicago I would ALWAYS keep my eyes open for one of their 30 some trucks. BJ actually saw the first one, I saw one once a couple of months ago, and in the past couple of months with all my car issues I always secretly hoped that one of O'hare's trucks would come and tow me. BJ today busted my bubble. Yeah that's right, O'hare towing came out to tow his sorry ass car down to Joliet so he can get his transmission fixed. Now you all are probably like, well at least the truck came out to your house and you could see it. Yeah no...his car was at my mom's house because that is where he left his car when he picked up my mom's car when he didn't think he could drive his car any further. I mean seriously??? I stayed up watching these men and women tow semi after semi and car after car out of snow and mud. GRRRRRR. SO JEALOUS!

Congradulations Bothers!

In the last 14 days Elijah, BJ and I rode to Michigan to watch my brother Brett graduate from Grand Vally State with a Degree in Accounting and Finance. He was possibly one of the most highly decorated gradates to walk that day. He wore three sashes (study abroad, fraternity, and honors college), he also wore a metal and three different cords. Elijah practiced wearing the hat for his graduation day (someday far down the line). Then we drove home. Then this past Saturday, Elijah and I drove out to Iowa to watch my brother Tom graduate for the University of Iowa with a Degree in Engineering and Mathematics. To bad Elijah was more fascinated in jewelry than he was in the pictures that we were trying to get. Again Elijah practiced wearing the hat. Once we were done with pictures Elijah was exhausted and needed a nap while he gave me enough time to peacefully eat my dinner. Little did I know that would be the last bit of peace for the rest of the night. Yes that's right my wonderful child screamed for an hour and a half before he was able to be calmed. It was a very long ride home. VERY long ride. However, before we left for the screaming ride home he got a little something to eat.

Over all, I am super happy for both my brothers! Now it's a big fat welcome to the real world.

On a side note, last night I caught Elijah standing all by himself, not holding on to anything. I think this had to be the most excited I have been about his developmental milestones to date. However, I don't know if the flu bug that had decided to call my body home for most of Sunday had anything to do with my increased emotions, but I actually cried. Way to go Little Elijah, keep up the good work.

Makes you think...

Warning...This may make me cry, and it may make you cry... Especially if your a parent.

Sometimes you are going along in life and things seem to be getting you down, tough to handle. I know for me lately, I have had to handle my boss resigning, new management, BJ's grandpa dying, my car dying, switching daycare providers, BJ's transmission failing, the list keeps going. At times it just feels like nothing is going right. BJ keeps saying, I wish we had more money, I keep responding, no matter how much money we make we will always wish we had more. I wish I could afford the $300 per week daycare, I wish we could both drive newer cars, I wish we could think about moving into our forever home, or even know selling this one we will come out on top of our mortgage. Again, the list goes on.

But every once in awhile we are reminded that what we do have we need to be grateful for. Today was that day for me. I am off at a continuing education class Thursday and Friday about autism. Today we spent most of the day seeing what autism is like from the parents point of view. We looked at home videos of these kids as infants and how they are now, non-verbal, stiming, tantruming, persevering little kids. Autism is getting more frequently diagnosed, no one knows why, we only know that there is a genetic componite to it.

As I watched these parents all I could think of was, thank God, Elijah has developed typically up until this point. These parents spend more money on therapies, therapy tools such as swings clothing and toys, and schools up through 8th grade than many parents spend on college, traveling sports teams, and big wheels. I just keep thinking of the phrase, "when a child dies parents can bury their child and morn the passing. A parent with a child with autism has to morn the loss of their child while still having to help their child." At that moment I wanted to leave, drive the 45 min home, pick up Elijah and hug him. Tomorrow should be interesting.

I Learn from the dog: By Elijah

It's been a long time since I posted. But I wanted to show you all what new tricks I can do. Most of what I have learned to do is because the only thing that loves me enough is the dog. She is always on the floor with me! She is always wanting to play with me. The best thing I have learned from her was how to get my toys from point A to point B. YOUR MOUTH!! Gosh that dog is smart. I wonder why Mom and Dad don't do this more often?

P.S. Check out Mommy's post?

Quick list (second post tonight)

1. My neighbors are awesome! Without them we would be down two really good friends and my car would probably would not be fixed if it wasn't for them.
2. Kids are funny. One of my kids told me today that the reason mail takes a while to get to his house is because he lives in a circle (or cul de sac.)
3. Softball season has begun. BJ is off playing baseball with this buddies. I can't wait until Elijah and I can go with him. We need it to be a bit warmer out though.
4. My mom is going to meet some turkeys. Still wish I was going with.
5. I wish the temperature of where I work would stay the same.
6. I have to drive to the other side of the world Thursday and Friday and I don't know if my car can drive across water or if I can get back in time to get Elijah from daycare.
7. I watch way to much TV!
8. I wish I had magic powers so I could poof and have dinner made. That would be awesome.

My first Mother's Day

It all started semi-wonderful. Elijah woke up at the crack of dawn, 6:00 am. BJ actually got up and got the boy and tried to change him. This caused him to scream bloody murder! Hard to sleep through that! Then Elijah came in and snuggled with me a bit in bed. And for the first time Elijah intentionally leaned over and gave me a kiss. In fact, he gave me about 15, most of them were super wet and sloppy. Then the boys went down stairs and had breakfast, again tried to catch a bit more sleep but never fail, child continued to scream throughout breakfast. Then the boys took a shower and I dressed the boy and tried to put him down for a nap. HAHA no nap mommy, I want to play. I then showered and started getting ready, as I came out bedroom to check on the boy there was a horrid smell that met my nose. Elijah made me a present! however, due to the holiday BJ got to change the diaper. We then finished getting ready for church and headed off to church. However, Elijah began getting very fussy, wait did I say began??? I meant continued to fuss. Finally he fell asleep, then we got to church and had to wake him up. We made it through the first couple of sections of church before Elijah became to wiggly. I then spent the rest of the church service trying to rock my child to sleep. After church Elijah still had not fallen asleep yet and as we talked to everyone outside Elijah kept melting, and melting. I finally was able to peel my husband away from socializing and we headed off to the store. But I realized that I needed to get gas for my car so we stopped by the grocery story to get gas. And the car wouldn't start. SERIOUSLY!! After we spent the next couple of minuets trying to get the car to start. I then thought, if we wait a bit the car may decide to work again once it sits for awhile. So off we go with the baby to get food for the afternoon, walk back across the parking lot and...no such luck. (Side note, if you haven't read yesterdays blog about my husbands patients here would be another instance of not having any). The car still refused to start and BJ started to curse and get real short with anything I had to say. The whole time I am thinking, great, now we have raw meat, and a baby exposed to the sun. Finally, a family offered us a jump, NO LUCK! Turning out to be a great mother's day! The wonderful family offered to give us a lift home, Thank goodness because walking the 2 miles without the stroller, a bag of food, and a crabby husband would have been AWESOME! We got home called BJ's parents who were already coming over for dinner and asked them to come a bit earlier so BJ could go back to the car and fix it. Elijah finally went down for a nap, BJ left with his dad to fix the car and BJ's mom made us brownies. 2 hours later Elijah woke up but the car was still not fixed or anything. Mind you BJ is getting pissier and pissier by the minute. I had wanted to get the Audry done before his parents to here and I wanted to get a nap in too. Yeah none of that happened. Once everyone got back home they made dinner and Elijah serenaded us with whines. My car is still not back home, it is sleeping at Firestone for the evening to get looked at in the morning, my dishwasher needs to be checked to see if it cleaned the dishes from dinner. I am utterly exhausted and I DID NOT get my day with no child. I really hope next year is not as expensive.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mommies. I hope yours wasn't nearly as costly as mine was or nearly as stressful.

Why I too will be getting a new dishwasher for Mother's Day (unplanned)

No Elijah didn't break it, I just thought a cute picture of the boy was needed!

This all started hmm.. when we bought our house, I guess. Our dishwasher has been the root of many a household problems for us. The builders initially decided that it would be a great idea to puncture the body of the dishwasher with the tiniest little hole. For the first couple of months we were always running the dishwasher at night when we were heading to bed or right before we left for work in the morning. However, as time went by we ran the dishwasher while we were actually home and started noticing a puddle of water on the floor in front of it. Now please note, we never really were pleased with the dishwasher we picked out, it was the base line model that I think even if you walked into any home appliance store you would have to buy a model better than ours because this cheap model was only sold to home builders to help keep the price of the homes low. ANYWAY, upon further inspection we noted that there was a leak in the tub. So off we go calling the builders to say our home warranty covered the thing and we wanted a new one. They sent out a guy he took 2 seconds to look at it and said, "you need to call GE- it's their problem." Fine. So I do. I take off a day of work, wait for the GE guy to come out and check out our dishwasher that is peeing on the floor every time we use it and see what he has to say about it. This guy at least took the time to look at it and says, "well who ever installed the kick plate on this thing put a pointy screw in a whole that should have had a flat screw. The builders were the ones that caused this error." GREAT! I then asked him to type it all up and as he is walking out the door, I am back on the phone with our builder saying I have paper work to prove it is their fault and they need to bring be back a new dishwasher. They then come back to the house check the paper work and order me an new dishwasher. However, me being smart asks if we could get the up grade and pay the difference. Yeah, no such luck. So on one of the super cold winter days of 2008 a new one arrives at our door step. They come out and install the thing and great!

A couple weeks later it starts making a real weird noise but it is still cleaning so no biggy, just super annoying.

Now let's jump ahead several years. We head over to my father's house to discover that they are having a jet land in their dishwasher and are having a repair man come out to fix the part. First of all the repair man, he knew his dishwashers and was very open to answering questions about them. BJ then told him about the weird noise ours makes almost every time we use it. The repair man offered him some suggestions on how to make it stop making that noise and BJ was all excited to get home and "fix" our $50.00 dishwasher.

We get home we pull out the tools and out come the screws easy as pie. but the piece we need to move still isn't coming off. A little pull here, a big pull there, nothing. Hmmm, it just seems to be stuck on something. Now don't get me wrong, I love my hubby very much, but he inherited his patients from his father. And let me tell that isn't very much. BJ loves to fix things, he loves to learn to fix things, but the second it can't be fixed on the first try, or doesn't go the way exactly planned, all logical thinking goes out the window. So when the dishwasher wasn't coming apart exactly the way the repair man had described it, that was it we were done. Instead of looking around to see where we might be getting caught up we just pulled with all our might to loosen up the piece we needed off and snap. First words out of BJ's mouth, "that's broken." On the positive side we found out that our lovely dishwasher had plastic wrapped around the motor that chops up the food to go down the drain. That was the noise. However, now we really can't put the dishwasher back together. We will try it out a couple of washes to see how it works with how we put it back together but I see a new dishwasher in my future. Here are some picks of what we found inside our dishwasher.

Warning if your eating, you may want to wait a bit before checking this out:

Ton of Bricks

It has happend to all of us and some of us it happends more often than others. That is the ton of bricks that hits you after a long day of work. Today the ton of bricks caught up with me while I was making dinner. I was minding my own buisness, cutting up the potatos, and yes I was the one cooking. I know right call Guiness... anyway, I needed to cut up an onion so I brought it over to the garbage to peal the crunchy skin off of the outside and bamb! All I wanted to do was close my eyes and curl up with the onion and go to sleep. I guess that's what happends though after your play with kids for hours on end during the day. Let's go over some of the things I heard from kids this week.

1. "You're hairy, You're real hairy."~This child was actually commenting on the fact that his clinician was wearing her hair down.

2. While walking past an older clinician, "How OLD is she???" Mind you this was at the top of his lungs!

3. To a pregnat clinician, "You have a baby in there??? Let me see??" In response to what he thought was in there. "A Five Dollar Footlong" I guess this was better than the kid who thought it was a puppy several weeks ago. I think they will both be slightly disappointed when it turns out to be a baby.

I'm sure there were more this week but as of now the second ton of bricks was just delivered to my door step and I need to start figuring out how to get me and my two tons of bricks up the stairs and to sleep.

Laughing

Thanks to my mother, I have found a new blog that I love. Anyone in the medical field needs to check this one out. One of the older posts really has nothing to do with being a doctor but about a new shower cleaner that I too have recently installed in my shower. Now props to the shower cleaner, I love it. In fact, we bought one for our neighbor so she doesn't die cleaning the inside of her shower. And FYI, The Dr. blog is something I have thought about doing with some of the kids I have worked with.

http://drgrumpyinthehouse.blogspot.com/