Monday, December 28, 2009

Somebody knock some sense into me!

My parents did not come down for Christmas. Therefore, we are making a very quick trip to NY to see them. Even if I don't really want to drive that far, little brother already changed his plane tickets to fly back to Madison from Rochester, instead of National airport. My oldest 2 have volunteered to stay home and watch/take care of the cat and dog and be here when the repairman comes to fix the dishwasher, again. It is making a weird whining noise, probably something stuck in the food disposal. :)

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Miss Rosalie

At 6 month adjusted, 7 1/2 months actual, she is now 13 pounds 5 ounces and 26 1/2 inches long. So she has gained 7 pounds 13 ounces and 7 1/4 inches over her lowest weight/height in the NICU. Size wise, she looks like a 2 month old, but does all the age appropriate stuff for a 6 month old. My #3, oldest son, was 11 pounds 8.8 ounces when he was born and around 13 pounds by the time he was 4 weeks old. :)

Monday, October 26, 2009

Pictures







Sam 3 and Rosalie 6 Months.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Sickness, ARGH!

Three more sick today with cold type symptoms. I wonder if they have flu, also?

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Flu, part 2

Now my oldest has it. Only 8 more kids to get sick, plus hubby and I.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Swine Flu.

Swine flu
#5, aka Richie, has Type A flu. The most prevalent form now is Swine flu. It’s going to be a long week. :(

The cdc's website says he was contagious from 1 day before he got sick up to 7 days afterwards. He had a sinus infection and bronchitis when he went to the dr tuesday, but may have had the flu then. He just got the fever yesterday afternoon. The nurse today suggested we check him for flu, which came out positive before the DR came in to see him.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

6 Months old?

How can that be possible? Rosalie is around 13 pounds now and 25+ inches tall. She is tiny compared to the oldest 9, but still on the growth charts in the same percentiles. I'll have Anne take pictures this week and post them.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

School

I dread the school year starting, as I really enjoy sleeping late in the summer. :) However, I found out trying to home school my oldest daughter (twice), that we are not organized enough to home school and still get the bare minimum of housework done.

After 2 weeks of school, it is still hard to get the kids up every morning. It's a mad rush to get everyone out the door and off to school on time. This week we add 1 more child who has to get to school. My 4 yr old is starting preschool at the high school Tuesday morning. She is really excited, especially since my 8th grader has permission to bring her lunch and eat it in the preschool classroom with Laura. What will I ever do with only 2 at home for part of the day? Sam (almost 3) gets into so much without supervision. I guess I'll be following him around the house, with Rosalie in the sling?

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Poor Rosalie

She has her first ear infection. By the second day of antibiotics, she had a rash starting on her head and body. Since 2 of my boys react badly to amoxicillin, the dr said to take her off the medicine and treat her for the pain with tylenol. She will either fight it off her self or the ear drum will rupture. Either one will make her feel better.

On the up side, she is 12 pounds even now, as of Friday. So at 21 weeks, she has gained 5 pounds, 12 ounces over her birth weight. My oldest son weighed this much when he was 2 weeks old. :)

Sunday, August 9, 2009

#10

She is finally big enough that I feel like I am holding one of my babies. The others were so much bigger at birth. She started the real smiles recently.

It has been crazy recently. Between the trips back and forth to Pennsylvania to meet my BIL and drop off/pick up her siblings, #1 has gotten plenty of interstate driving practice.

School starts in 3 weeks? We have so much to do to get everyone organised before then. I would at least like to get the clothes all washed/dried/sorted once before school starts. After the next sock matching party, I'm going to throw out all the odd ones. An entire 1 bushel basket of unmatched socks is too many.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

#10

She is now 10 pounds 8 ounces and 23 inches long. She has gained 5 pounds over her lowest weight in the NICU in 14 weeks.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Poor Rosalie

She was rudely awakened last night by Sam, (almost 3) who rolled toward me, squishing her between us. It was a bit squishy in our bed last night, with me, Rosie, Sam, and Ray (6) and Billy (9) who crawled in with us. For some reason Hubby decided to sleep in his recliner. :)

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Rosalie, first 3 months photos






Top From 2 July 13 weeks

top right 10days old
bottom left 2 months old
bottom right 6 weeks
She is growing and eating alot, but can still fit in newborn diapers.





Saturday, June 27, 2009

My hubby surprised me last week.

For the first time in 20 plus years, he cleaned out the microwave. He even washed off the turn table. Of course, he was the one whose spaghetti sauce splattered all over the oven. :)

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Life is crazy

It has been 3+ weeks since I posted? This is my last week of family medical leave before I go back to work. I still have not been able to teach Rosalie how to nurse efficiently, so have been pumping and bottle feeding her sometimes. She is gaining weight slowly, so different from my other kids, but having plenty of diapers to change and getting much taller. With the long fingers and toes she has, I think she will have my #2 body type. Mary is 17, 5 ft 9 inches and maybe 120 pounds soaking wet. Rosalie will have her first shots early next month, as I decided to delay them a bit due to her prematurity. I'll find out in 2 weeks how much she weighs. 10 days ago she was 8 pounds, 4 ounces, so 2 pounds 12 ounces over her lowest weight in the NICU 10 weeks ago.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

#10

It looks like she has an upper lip tie-like a tongue tie, but between the upper lip and gums. If the dr thinks it is bad enough to cause dental problems later, she should be able to refer us to an ENT or pediatric dentist to have it corrected. From the research I've done, that could be causing her bad latch and nursing problems. It would be so nice to only have to pump at work and not after most feedings. :)

Moving?

Hubby wants to move back to NY state, where we met 25 years ago, and buy his parents house. I would love living nearer to our families, but I dread sorting through 16 years accumulation of stuff in our current house. Unfortunately, jobs are few and far between there and the taxes are terrible. But, if we could sell our house for anywhere near the assessed value, we could pay off both cars, our current mortgage, credit cards and still buy his moms house. Then we would only have the normal expenses and taxes, no debt. We both have relatives in this area he could stay with during the week and come home on weekends. It took him 7 hours round trip to get to work one day last week when he missed his commuter van. It takes less time to drive one way to his mom's house 325 miles away when we leave from Front Royal...

Thursday, May 7, 2009

#10

She is eating and growing well. If I could just get her to nurse, life would be so much easier. With all the allergies that hubby and I both have, I refuse to feed her formula. My pump is my friend, when it is working correctly. After 9 yrs, maybe it is wearing out? They only have a 1 yr warrantee.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Rosalie is coming home today!

Now I just need to teach her to nurse, as she still does not latch properly. There is plenty of breastmilk in my frozen stash for when I go back to work. I just wish I did not have to pump until then. ;) Anyway I can get her to eat until she figures out the nursing thing is fine with me, as she can now go home.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Hooray!

Rosalie actually nurse well today and drank her entire bottle of fortified breastmilk. I think she is finally getting the I need to eat idea. She needs to eat for 48 hours without using the feeding tube to get discharged from the hospital. She will be 37 weeks gestational age on Monday, which is considered full term.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Rosalie Arlene

She was born yesterday, 5 weeks 3 days early. She was 6 pounds, 4 ounces and 19 1/4 inches long. She'll be in the NICU for a few weeks, at least, until she learns to suck/swallow and breath and her jaundice clears up.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The silly Van, part 2

The fan was working fine this morning. The only thing I did was to take all the junk off the dashboard, as hubby likes to pile stuff there. Then is started acting up again. ARGH, make up your mind, you ornery piece of machinery.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Silly Chevy Van

It must know the warrantee expires soon? I went to turn on the ac today and the fan only worked in the hi speed selection. I checked the heat and defrost also, same thing. Then I called the dealer. The Van has 33,848 miles on it and the warrantee expires in late May. Hubby will drop it off tomorrow afternoon when he gets home and they will fix it Thursday. Now, if I could find the 5 inch long L shaped piece of metal that locks the bench seat in on the passenger side. We took out the back 2 seats when we bought Anne's new bed and some one did not put it back into the floor. The dealer says they are $25 each. Argh!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Ah, to be young and single again

One of my coworkers decided to buy a new 52 in flat screen lcd tv. So he gave us a 47 inch projection tv and a 27 in older tv, plus an entertainment center and a table. Sam walked into the living room after I had the big tv set up and figured out the DVD and vcr connections. He did a double take, picked up his little chair, placed it righ in front of the tv and said "Watch Dora". Daddy is tired of Dora and so is mommy, but it kept him busy for a while while we got the other tv set up. We just need 2 more dvd players, as the combo dvd/vcr the vcr does not work anymore and the dvd player in the girls room does not work. I think 4 tv's is enough, though it will be nice when we decide that we are getting dish network or get the antenna fixed. The same kids movies over and over again are getting old.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Good back!

After 3 visits to the Chiropractor and icing my back frequently last weekend, I can finally move without pain. Yeah! Just in time for me to start nesting and decrap the house before Rosalie is born, due in 2 months. :)

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Bad back!

I really shouldn't have cleaned my van 2 weeks ago. My back has hurt since then. It was getting better, then started hurting a lot more yesterday. I have no idea what I did to mess it up more. The chiropractor is my friend? Time to call him monday morning.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

I wish I knew to what I am allergic

Every evening for the last few days I have broken out in hives at work. Maybe I'm allergic to corn, also, as well as peanuts? I bought a large UTZ party mix container last weekend, that I have been munching on every night. I think I'll take it home for the kids and go back to eating pretzels and wheat chex.

Monday, February 23, 2009

The thermometer must be wrong

It says that is is 73 degrees in my office. I'm freezing and so are my co-workers. It was 77 this weekend in here and we were all hot. I know this is a big building, but you think with all the money and time they spent renovating it that the heating and cooling systems would be a little better...

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Tuesday morning was exciting!

I drove Hubby up to the commuter parking lot, as he did not realise his license had expired until he took Anne in for her road test on Saturday. He was not able to get the documents from the safe deposit box in time to get a new one. Of course, with the holiday Monday, he had to wait until today to go to the DMV at work to get a new one.

I dropped him off, then circled around the parking lot to exit. A car backed right into my front bumper as they were trying to leave a parking space. No major damage noted, but I brought the car down to the body shop to make sure nothing in damaged in the bumper, etc. I think Rosalie is fine- no worrisome symptoms yet. Maybe I should call my OB/gyn to see if they want me to come in?

The bodyshop said to replace the bumper cover and repaint it, it would be $700. There is no way I'm going to charge someone that to repair a 12 yr old car that already has dings in both bumpers from when mIL owned the car. If it had been my 2006 Camry or Van, I would have gotten it fixed.

Monday, February 16, 2009

My oldest has her driver's license

It was nice to have her drive everyone who missed the bus to school today. I did not have to get the youngest 2 dressed, and get them all in the van. I could get used to this. :)

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Hospital stay

The antibiotics weren't working. I ended up at Winchester Medical center ER on Sat morning last week. I spent almost 4 days hooked up to iv's of antibiotics and extra fluids. I was bored. At least the baby was/is fine. Little stinker!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

I hate it when I get sick

I have a kidney infection. Not fun, though after 3 days the antibiotics seem to be finally working. At least I can rest at work. :)

The kids don't understand why mom is cranky when I am over tired anyway and sick. They are cranky when they are sick.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Tired

Boy, now I know how hubby feels. We both drove to work separately Tuesday, as his carpool wanted to leave early and he needed to stay until his normal day was over. No problem, I parked at the parking garage in Pentagon city and paid for parking, he parked with the parking pass at work. When we finally got ready to go home, we decided to take my car home and just leave his in the parking lot. So we drive home, on roads that weren't too bad and decided to stay home on wednesday, as his van pool was not going in due to freezing rain. I had to drive him to the commuter parking lot to catch his vanpool this morning. They leave at 4:40 and do not wait for stragglers. We got up at 4 and left our house at 4:28. I never went back to sleep, as the school did not announce the 2 hour delay until 5:15. By then I had finished 3 cups of strong tea and was wide awake.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

I need to edit the photo?

I scanned it in last night, but should have changed it before I emailed it to myself at work? Oh well, I'll fix it later.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Rosalie is such a little stinker

Not even born yet and already freaking mom out. I went to the dr for a routine OB check on Friday. They were not able to pick up her heartbeat in the lower abdomen. They finally picked up her heartbeat under my ribs. No wonder I have such bad heartburn right now. The upside it that the lower digestive problems have gone, for now.