Debi's sleeping baby pics request

My friend Debi has challenged us all to post pics of our babies sleeping when they were little. I wish I had better ones to post but the ones I wanted were alas, not saved to this computer. These were all when the babies were pretty small. In the bottom right one, Isaiah wasn't even home from the hospital yet.

The Halloween pic was taken of corse on Halloween night and the twins had been born on Sept 29th so they were one month and two days old.

It's so funny because at the time I thought they were so darn cute and they were but as compared to now...not very. I think its that way for most parents...

Here is one of Sydney sleeping with Zoe when they both were pretty small. Zoe enjoyed the warmth of Sydney's little body and they often took naps curled up together.

The Discarded Ice Cream Cone

This evening as we went by McDonalds to rent a Red Box DVD, we ordered the babies a kiddie cone. We asked them not to pile the ice cream high- just enough for them to have a little sample. So they filled the ice cream just barely above the cone line which was perfect. However, the twins did not cooperate. Isaiah looked at his ice cream and perfered to just watch it dribble down the mini-cone. Alexandria enthusastically dove into her ice cream, but did so with her fingers. About half way home, we turned around and looked at the babies in their carseats and what a sight! Alexandria was digging through her cone and her fingers were coated with vanilla ice cream. Her mouth as a mess as she had smeared her hands across her face. Isaiah's was no longer a problem as since he had become bored of his ice cream, Brice had provided assistance by taking it from him and polishing it off.
Now, we looked at Alexandria and her ice cream stained face and her vanilla covered fingers. She looked back at us with an "uh-oh" expression. By all appearances, she was no longer actually eating the cone, just playing in it. Albert casually rolled down the window, reached over and took the cone from her hand and chucked it out the window.
"Albert!' I yelped. "You threw out her ice-cream!" I turned around in my seat to look at Alex. She looked FURIOUS! She was cutting her eyes at Albert and it seemed as though she would burst out in tears at any second.
"Don't look at her! Don't look at her!" Albert whispered.
Alexandria's lips pouted even more.
Albert tried to talk to her
"Alex baby, its okay. It's okay Ali girl..."
Tears welled up in Alex's eyes. She was getting ready to burst....she was definately winding up...
We tried to avoid direct eye contact with her after that. But I looked in the mirror and could see her...she was definately giving Albert the evil eye!

Thursday night...

So tonight is pretty fun for a Thursday. First of all, I finally put up the pics of the kids' first trip of the summer to the Mascoutah pool. I uploaded them to a onetruemedia video that you'll undoubedly see up top. I replaced the zoo video which was getting old...unless you are one of those family members...ahem...Umpa who never check the blog but then say that they need pictures of the kids....
Drew is having a friend, Cameron, spend the night so all the boys ages 6+ and Albert are playing Wii and GameCube. I personally like the "Cooking Mama" game that Jackson owns but apparetenly, its not enough action for the older guys...including Albert. So they are currently playing street basketball.
School is crazy. A & P is really tough, mainly because there is so much information to be covered in only 8 weeks so its fairly intense. I will be studying most of the weekend. Nutrition is pretty simple but I have a couple of assignments to get done this weekend.
We are planning to take the kids out to lunch tomorrow at pizza hut. They have a really reasonably priced lunch buffet. All you can eat for abut $6 and kids 3 and under are free. So that means we don't have to pay for Brice or the twins.
In Sydney news, she's really comming along with the solid foods finally and has just yesterday increased to eating solids twice per day. She jumped to this stage from almost refusing to eat any solids at all, so I'm feeling happy about that. So far we've done bananas, applesauce, and sweet potatoes. She used to only let the applesauce pass through her little lips without spitting it back out but as of the past couple of days, she happily accepts any of these three and doesn't spill a bite. In fact, next time I shop I'm going to buy stage 2 becuase today and yesterday she went through the little stage one container in about 20 seconds. Not a drop was spilled or missed or spit out. Yes, she is my daughter and thus, her mouth doesn't miss a morsel!

Our First Award!

We received our first award today from our good friend Tonya at www.thestaabfamily.blogspot.com
She is also listed on our links section. Tonya's blog is one of my very favorites because I am constantly in awe of her fabulous life. In my next life, I'd like to be her. Tonya is an amazing party planner and her events are always spectacular. I can't wait to meet her one day.

So the babies are watching veggie tales and the older kids are playing outside after a morning of chores and enrichment worksheets for school, courtesy of Albert. They weren't all that happy that Daddy brought the extra worksheets home yesterday from summer school but they need the peactice. They only have to do 3 sheets per day so its not the end of the world, though to hear them tell it, you'd think it was. We told them on the day they bring home straight A's they can stop the extra worksheets.

In other exciting news, Alexandria has become fascinated with hairbrushing. So far this morning, she's brushed her own hair (which is unfortunate because it becomes very frizzy when bushed while dry), my hair (which is unfortunate for the same reason), Jackson and Brice's hair, and even got Emanuel to sit in her "beauty parlor" for a few seconds. Too bad sometimes she holds the brush backwards and ends up whacking people on the head with the plastic flat side of the brush. Ouch. Drew told her she wouldn't retain many clients that way!

Our fun night at Hockey Fest

So Brandon is feeling better now, though still accessed and on IV meds. Sydney's fever vanished and other then some congestion (that I'm hoping doesn't settle in her lungs...again) she is fine too. That makes everyone healthy.
We had tickets to the St. Louis Blues Hockey Fest last night so we took all the kids plus Albert's nephew. We had a great time and the kids really enjoyed it. It was sort of like a hockey game for charity with some real players and some other people who were just there to raise money for charities. For example, the Dad off of that show Growing Pains was there (not a bad player either) Some actress that I'd never heard of named Kim Alexis. My mom knew who she was but I didn't. A few older hockey players from the 70's, 80's and 90's. They put on a good show. A lot of it was scripted but it was very funny and entertaining.
Here is my one complaint. The Scott Trade Center, where it was located is made for skinny people. Not for fat people and certainally not for pregnant fat people. Listen to this embarrassing tale. Debi, I swear I can already hear you laughing from EHT.... The turnstyles there are really narrow. Albert was smart enough to push the stroller which meant he got to go through the little metal door they open for strollers and wheelchairs....but when I tried to pass through the turnstyle....I GOT STUCK! More accurately...my butt got stuck. There I was, frozen in the turnstyle unable to get through. I was holding Sydney which made it more of a spectacle. The kids all passed through the turnstyle next to me and so they all headed off with me yelling for Albert to wait, as I was stuck. Ovbiously, I was also holding up the line behind me. Finally, after twisting around for a few moments I made it through. I think Albert was very amused. However the joke was on him a few minutes later when we settled in our seats...also made only for skinny people, because Albert didn't fit! He had to lean forward in the seat because the arms of the chair were sticking in to his sides. I looked around and saw that several other fat people also didn't fit, so it wasn't just us. Additionally, there is no walking area at your feet so if someone in the middle of the row has to get up and say...potty or grab a snack, everyone in the aisle has to stand up and press up against their seat or worse, empty out into the end of the row to let the middle seat people pass. And do the same thing again when they return. And I tell you...I'm not THAT fat. Yes, I am 30 pounds over my pre pregnancy weight with the twins or Sydney but I'm not that fat considering I'm almost halfway through a pregnancy...the problem is that my butt IS that fat. And thus turnstyles pose a problem. But neither of us are so large that fitting in the seat should be a problem. I'm going to write a letter and complain that the Scott Trade Center is biased against large folks. I wonder what they'd say...
In other news...school stinks. I hate, hate, hate it. I hate being away from my babies. I hate loosing the time with my husband. And I hate the boring material we cover in class. I hate the fact that I can almost never get online except to do schoolwork (which is a ton) and that I spend so much of my time studying. This stinks.
So now, we're glad everyone is healthy. Hopefully it will stay that way. Going to clean up a bit before any little ones are up...

Back to the Hospital Again

So today made 48 hours that Brandon had been on his antibiotic and still no improvement. In fact, he was worse. Last night was very bad with his fever reaching almost 105 and him being up, crying, having chills and throwing up quite a bit. Albert handled most of it, as Brandon likes to be cared for by his Daddy when he is sick. Yes, he wants me if Daddy isn't around but if he's given the choice...it's Daddy every time.
I called Dr. Bob this morning to see if it was alright to wait another day before having him seen again and the response was that we needed to come in right then. So, we scrambled into clothes and off we went. I took Brice and Sydney with us and the rest of the crew stayed at home. We were in Albert's car which doesn't have any air conditioning (read this as doesn't have WORKING air conditioning) so we had all the windows rolled down. Several miles from home Brice was overcome with the sudden urge to chuck his sandles out the window and onto the highway. He gave in to that urge. Immediately he started sheiking "Mommy! My Sandles! My Sandles!"
I told him there was nothing we could do.
He then started yelling "Don't leave my sandles...don't leave my sandles"
Obviously, we had to leave the sandles. I wondered breifly how I was going to get through the hospital with Brice in bare feet but decided to scratch off that worry until later.
After Brice stopped crying he began a new campaign to drive me crazy. About every five minutes he would randomly shout "Found it Mom...Found it!"
What the heck "It" was I never determined. But every few minutes he would go off like an alarm clock..."Found it Mom!" Have you ever tried to drive and concentrate on the heavy traffic around you with someone yelling "Found it!" from the backseat??? Rather annoying.
When we got there, discovered that actually only one sandle had been chucked out the window. The other was on the floorboard of the car. Luck was on my side as we happened to have another mismatched sandle (of another style and color of course) available and so thus Brice was spared from visiting the hospital in bare feet.
Brandon was in bad shape when we got there and was mumbling and moaning about wanting his Dad and feeling very badly. His fever was 103.6 when we got there. Dr. Bob took a look at him and said that his plan was to give Brandon another dose of IV Rocephin there in the office and then we could continue the Amoxicillian at home. This made me a bit nervous as it has only been in the last couple of months that we have even been able to treat him at all with a low level oral antibiotic like amoxicilian. Given that Brandon had just had strep a month ago and was treated with amox and thus the strep was back, it didn't inspire lots of confidence. But Dr. Bob said he'd rather not keep going up steps of antibiotics since Brandon already had the potential to need stronger ones later due to his disease and he didn't want him to become colonized to the lower level ones. He ordered blood work and about an hour later nurse Jamie came back in.
"Well" she said. Dr. Bob said to stop the amoxicilin. Brandon's CRP went from 1.7 on Monday to 13.6 today. He's going to have to get the IV Rocephin for 7 days." Lovely. CRP is a count that measures infection in the body. Normal or no infection is less than 0.5 so 13.7 indicates a decent size infection somewhere. This isn't really a terrible number. Brandon has certainally had much worse but it is concerning and espicially concerning that its rising and not falling. So...so much for getting to use normal antibiotics orally for common infections.
So, Brandon is accessed and home health just delivered his shipment of Rocephin. Yea us. Even greater news...Sydney has a fever as well. I looked at her diaper area to see if I could find any strep rash but found nothing. She is sounding very congested though. I swear, if she has another bout of pnemonia I will scream.
When we got home Brandon was feeling a bit better but now not so much...Sydney went to bed a half hour early as she didn't feel well either. Here's hoping tomorrow will bring a better day for the kids...and us...

Excerpts From My Birth Plan

Alright, so this week I turned in my "Birth Requests" to my midwife and 2 OB's. I don't like to call it a "Birth Plan" as doing so will practically guarentee that something will indeed go wrong and necessitate a surgical delivery and cancel out every one of my requests. I won't bore you with the whole thing, but I thought I'd include some little clips and snippets. And oh yes, I turned in in just as I've written here...word for word. In other news, Brandon is sick. Strep again. Spent the whole afternoon at the hospital. He feels miserable but is now on meds so should be well again soon.
Okay, here we go. The ... indicate places where I have skipped over the boring parts and just gotten to the good stuff.

Dear Dr. G, Dr T and Tammy,
Here are the issues I am concerned about during labor/delivery. I would like it very much if you could please write instructions regarding these matters in my chart so that I will not have to argue with the hospital staff whilst trying to birth a baby...

* I do not wish to wear the hospital gown. My behind is far too large by the end of pregnancy and the gown always ends up wadded up underneith me... I plan to wear a sports bra. At my last birth, the nurse was very uncooperative and acted as though I'd requested to give birth wearing a scuba suit.

*If I am induced with pictocin I would like it shut off once adequate contractions have been established. Furthermore, I don't want it turned back on to facilitate delivery of the placenta which I beleive will come when it is ready. Obviously, if I am bleeding to death, (or even a little too much) please disregard this request and crank it up.

*I do not want to push in stirrups. In fact, I really hate stirrups. They make me feel like a frog about to be dissected. I would also like to request that the bottom half of my bed not be pulled out from under me just before I deliver...

*Please ignore the fact that I will probably disobey the hospital's photography policies. I feel that my vagina belongs to me and that I should be able to photograph or videotape what comes out of it whenever I want. I will certainally respect the right of hospital staff not to be photographed or videotaped.

Here are some excerpts from the section entitled "IN THE EVENT OF A C- SECTION"

*I do not want my arms restrained. I find this quite traumatizing and feel like a prisoner about to get a lethal injection.

*...I don't want the screen in my face. I can't see my baby be born through the screen. Clearly, this is one of the points of the screen but I don't like it. Between the spinal anesthesiaand the screen, I felt very disconnected from my last c-section birth and don't want that to happen again. Obviously, I can't do without the anesthesia, but I can do without the screen. If this is not possible, I'd be happy to settle for a mirror so I can see the deliver.

*Please do not give me Morphine following surgery or I will scratch off my face.

...Thank you so much if you are still reading this. Again, I assure all of you that I will not be uncooperative during birth, as it is NOT my goal to get kicked out of the practice....

______________________________________________________________________

I wish I could have seen the look on the OB's faces when they read this. Now watch, next month I'll be looking for a new provider after I get kicked out of the practice I belong to. The pediatrician will love the parts I wrote for her which I didn't include here basically because they lacked any humor. It pretty much states that I don't want the baby seperated from me...at all. No bath in the nursery. No pediatrician exams in the nursery. No stupid rules about waking baby up to feed him after 4 hours. Yes it seems rather harsh but I have reasons.
I don't want the nursery to bathe the baby because then they like to tell you that they have to keep the baby there under the warmer for a while to let his temp rise again after having bathed him. After an hour or so passes and I again request my child I get the old "well, his temp still isn't up to where it should be yet, so we'll have to keep him a little bit longer." I've waited up to four hours before for some of my babies temps to come back up. So now here's the deal. No bath in the nursery equals no reason to wait on his temp to "come back up" After a vaginal delivery there really isn't much for the mom to recover from so I'll have no problem bathing him myself in my room and placing him skin to skin against my chest to help his temp return to normal. Seems much easier nd nicer for everyone doesn't it?
As far as the pediatrician exams go I look at it this way. Every single visit my baby has with his pediatrician,I will be there for..I'll be the one taking him to the office. Why would I not want to be there for perhaps the most important one? Why would I lay in my hospital bed while they are examining him and making findings regarding his health? I'm not sick...I feel perfect after vaginal deliveries so why should I not be there? It doesn't make sense.
As far as the feeding issue goes. I have successfully fed 8 infants from newborn up without starving a single one of them. Why in the world would I discount my own innate knowledge regarding when my baby needs to eat on the word of a nursery nurse who I'll never see again?
I don't wake newborns to eat when they are sleeping (except the twins who were preterm and had a different set of circumstances). I never have and have never had feeding problems. Thus, I will not be made to follow the nursery guidelines just because. The best way to do that??? Keep the baby with me and out of the nursery.
Don't even get me started on the things I posted in here from my "birth requests" just sufice it to say that I will not be on the hospital's assembly line of birth anymore. I feel that we have a serious maternity care crisis in our hospitals now a days and we need to start looking at the way the rest of the world births and follow some of thier examples. For all of our technology and resources and high tech labor/delivery equiptment...the United States lags far behind in both infant mortality and maternal mortality as compared to other countries who use predominately midwives to attend birth, have more homebirths and far lower c-section rates. It's a topic I could go on an on about but I'll stop here. I will say however that I am very dissatisfied with the practices and policies of labor and delivery in our country today and that is a big part of the reason why I want to become (eventually) a midwife. I hope one day to give women better choices than the ones I currently have here in the birth-unfriendly state of IL.
But I do love my midwife. She is great. So are both of the OB's. The hospital's policies stink.

My Quest for BPA Free Bottles

My mother in law has been sending us little clippings from the newpaper. These articles are on various topics regarding parenting...she's sent a couple on breastfeeding, one on vaccinations and one on the dangers of bottles that contain BPA. Now, normally I must admit it takes days to even find time to read the articles and when I do, I don't always agree with their content but I was very interested in the one regarding BPA in bottles. Interested mostly because I know that microwaving these bottles aids in the toxic chemicals leaching out into the formula and as those of you who know me well can probably guess....I do microwave the bottles indeed. So, a couple weeks ago while standing in Walmart with Albert deciding on whether to go with the Huggies brand or the Walmart store brand (never again) I remembered the article and started looking for new bottles labeled BPA FREE. The only ones I could find in Walmart though, were the walmart brand "Parent's Choice." The deal seemed good. 3 bottles in the pack for only $2.97 but I was skeptical....they looked cheap and plain and not very fun. I decided to give them a try as there was no other choice of BPA Free bottle.
I hated them. The nipple colapsed constantly. It took Sydney 45 minutes average to finish a feeding. That's longer than it took her as a newborn. Even when I enlarged the nipple (I know, I know, you aren't supposed to do that) it didn't help the problem. I was constatnly having to pull it out of her mouth for a few seconds to let the nipple reinflate. She always cried during this time becuase she thought I was taking it away from her when she wasn't done. Her little mouth would hang open and chase the nipple while I was letting it reinflate. Sometimes, if she sucked hard enuogh, the whole bottle would colapse in.
I read about "Born Free" bottles and discovered they were sold at Babies R Us. Albert and I headed out to get them yesterday but when I got there I discovered that they retailed for a whopping $10.99 PER BOTTLE!!! Okay, that's just a crazy amount of money to spend for a bottle. Fortunatley, Babies R Us sold other brands of BPA free so I had some options this time. Many of the choices resembled the Parents Choice brand a little too closely...plain, and cheap, and I wasn't taking chances again. I could have gone with glass and avoided the whole problem but then I thought....its my older kids who make up the bottle about 50% of the time and indeed feed Sydney the bottle about 10% of the time and do I really want them to be handling glass bottles...NO. And one other reason I didn't want to go with glass....BRICE. Enough said.
I saw that Dr. Brown's made a BPA Free plastic bottle and it was reasonably priced at around $12.00 for a pack of three. Not bad. But here's the thing. I used to use Dr. Brown's way back when it was the new trendy bottle and I cared about that kind of stuff. Now, with kid #8 being fed...I care about much more practical things such as cost...and how easy it is to clean. Those of you familiar with Dr. Brown's bottles know...they are not easy to clean. They come in about 4556767 parts that all need to be scrubbed seperately. There are little plastic attachements that I used to find very cool and very chic...now I find them a giant pain in the ass. However, they met the criteria of affordable and BPA Free and plastic...plus Albert and Sydney were waiting in the car so I went with them.
I'm glad to say that Sydney can now finish her meals in an appropriate amount of time and I can feel semi-good/better about microwaving her formula.
I should mention at this point that none of this would matter if I had been able to successfully breastfeed my baby. No toxic chemicals would be leaking out of my breasts and even if it did, I would be highly unlikely to microwave my breast and thus worsen the problem. My boobs are BPA free naturally and the milk that would feed Sydney would always be at the right temperature. Yes I'm still sad/bitter that breastfeeding didn't work out. Sad for a variety of reasons. Bitter because I know how much easier life would be if it had worked for us. But alas, 24 short little weeks until life affords a new opportunity to try again. This pregnancy is flying by. I updated the pregnancy journal if anyone wants to take a look. It's listed under the links section.
Still planning to upload pictures soon!

Happy Fathers' Day

Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads out there. Our day is going wonderfully so far. It's a really lazy day. We woke Albert up with breakfast in bed and gave him his cards and presents and then we let him go back to sleep for as long as he wanted...this is something we always do for each other on Mothers/Fathers day. It's the best present in the world.
Now we are watching a movie "The Eye" and getting ready to forage the fridge for some lunch. The babies are all taking a nap. I'm supposed to be working on homework but I can't get the internet site I need to display.
We picked the boys up from camp on Friday afternoon. The had a blast. They both brought home tons of stuff they had been given or collected. Both boys had really great counselors this year...and we found out Drew might have one more year to be eligible to go. Then he goes to teen camp after that.
I have a lot of pics to try to upload later this week. I'll make a new smile box for them.
As you can see we have internet!!! Yea!!! When I started class, I discovered that the nutrition class I'm taking is web-enhanced. The library is a giant pain in the neck and so we had to break down and get internet service. So far, so good.
I'll try to post the pics this week assuming things go smoothly

Summer Update!

Okay, so still no computer, but I am borrowing a friends laptop for just a few minutes while she takes a break from her school work.
Summer is going wonderfully so far. Drew and Brandon are at Camp Rainbow right now which is a five day sleep over camp for kids with cancer or blood diseases. They go each year in June and absolutely love it. They have a blast. We dropped them off on Sunday and got to make up their bunks in their cabins and lay out all their stuff. I miss them but I know they are having a great time.
Unfortunatley on the way home from dropping them off we came across an accident that had just happened on the street next to our neighborhood. A car had gone thru the gardrail and crashed upside down in the lake. We waited (as we were stuck) and Albert got out and tried to help but the police weren't allowing anyone else in the water to try to assist. Sadly, the man wasn't found. They next day his body was recovered. Very sad.
Albert is working summer school. It runs each day from 8-1. Then I have classes myself from 3-6 or 3-9 depending on the day. So we are busy.
We have started a summer schedule that has made life so much easier now that school is out and all 8 kids are here all day. We have a specific time for everything. We have a wake up time, three or four clean up times throughout the day, free times, activity times, specific meal times and bedtimes. It has made quite a difference and the best part is that the kids actually have more free time instead of less free time. Clean up is also much easier because it is being done throughout the day. So at night time, it only takes 20 minutes to pick up the kitchen (including dishes) because we've done little 20 minute pick-ups twice before that day. This is a tip I got from the Duggar family website...you know, the family in Arkansas with 16 or 17 kids. They have lots of good info on their site. I wish I could remember the address but I'm sure you could google it.
Here is our good news...I got accepted into the accelerated nursing program at Barnes Hospital.
I already have a bachelor's degree in another field so it will only take me a year once I start. Right now, I am doing the four pre-req's that I need in order to start the program. I am eligible to start in January but I think I'm going to delay until the May session due to the new baby. I hate leaving Sydney now just for summer school so I don't know how I'd leave a newborn all day.
The kids have been spending the summer swimming and playing outside. It's been so nice. Last night we took the kids swimming when I got off of school. Albert had picked up his nephew and we took him with us. The kids had a blast playing with their cousin.
That's about all the news I can think of. Not sure when I'll get back to update again. I still don't know when we'll have internet service. We're thinking of buying a laptop with our stimulus check since I'm back in school but I don't know..there are so many bills that we should pay as well and my school tuition and books are eating up 2/3rds of our check.
I'll try to update as much as I can. I wish I could post the pics of the kids playing in the pool but alas, its not my computer.
Hope everyone is having a great summer vacation!