The tales (or tails...) of the fish (2/27/06)

Alright, we're down two more fish. Dave's beloved Black lyre-tailed molly died a couple of days ago. I found him stuck between the rock and the plant laying on the bottom. I thought he was just caught so I went to free him and sure enough he was dead, dead, dead. I will take a moment to memorialize him:

I had named him Fonzie. He was all black. He was cool. He could command the other fish to do what he want at the flip of his fin. The Fonze seemed like a fitting name. He was the leader in the tank. He ate first. He was active and fun to watch. Our Mr. Fonzerelli will be missed.

Okay, so we were down 1. The very next day (actually about 12 hours later) I found one of the new tetras lying on the bottom in the exact same spot. Weird??? I fished (ahem) him out and flushed him. Nora has gotten quite adjusted to the flushing of the fish, by the way:) So we're down two. Last night before we went to bed I fed our friends and notice that I couldn't find one of the guppies (this one was named Ralph). We searched and searched. Finally Dave moved the large rock and it swam out of the hole and went directly to the corner of the tank and laid down on the rocks. What? Then he swam over to the same spot that The Fonze and the other fish had died and laid there. Huh??? This is just strange. He didn't look too good and we considered just flushing him right away, but Dave wanted to let him die in peace. This morning I fed the fish before doing my Tae Bo with the intention of fishing Ralphie out and flushing him, but lo and behold he was swimming like crazy and having a good old time with his other guppy pal, Richie The C.

We're on fish watch, my friends, and trying to figure out what is going on. I will keep you updated.

Would anyone like to guess what our speckled molly is named???

A sure thing (2/26/06)

I offered Nora $100 on the spot if she would stop talking for the rest of the day. She didn't take me up on the offer.

This morning I said to myself that my ears were bleeding from all of the children talking and yelling and crying non-stop. She asked me why my ears were bleeding - she is just way too perceptive and smart... nothing gets past her.

Perhaps in a few years she will finally take me up on the $100 deal - if she was REALLY smart she would take me up on it often enough to finance some major purchases in her life... with my desperation for some peace and solitude and her father's incredible ability to find great investments she could very well put away a nice downpayment for her future home!

Sleep will come (2/23/06)

I am pleased to announce that Georgia is now sleeping through the night successfully (8:45pm - 6am with a bottle at 10:30pm). YEA!!! Hopefully I will start sleeping through the night soon, too:)

We used the fan for one week. One week of internal torture as I tried to decide if she really needed to eat during the night or not and if it was mean to just ignore her. Here were the circumstances:

- Previous to the fan she was waking up for a pacifier around 2/2:30, up to eat at 3:30/4 and up for a pacifier around 5 or 6. I was an emotional wreck from the constantly interrupted sleep and only getting a couple of hours at a time.
- The first night with the fan was a long one. We used the wrong fan and could hear her over the fan. She fussed from 1:30-2:30, cried from 3:39-4:00 and sometime again in the morning. When I fed her at 7:45am she wasn't starving - in other words, she was NOT screaming the next morning because she was hungry and when she ate, she wasn't eating like she was so terribly hungry - not incredibly interested would be a better description.
- For the next week I woke up at 2:30 - no crying. Around 4:10 I thought I heard crying, but let her cry, then again around 6.
- By Monday morning (this past Monday) I was trying to decide if I should get up and feed her at the 4:10 cry-athon. One more night...
- Again on Monday night I heard her crying at 4:10 but let her cry. On Tuesday morning I decided I would get up and feed her at the 4:10 cry-athon that night.
- Tuesday night - I woke up at 4:10 and thought I heard her crying over the fan. Got up to feed her, but at the doorway I realized she wasn't crying - it was ringing in my ears. Perhaps she had not really been crying at 4:10 for the last couple of nights, but maybe my ears were ringing (which I have been experiencing since she was born).
- Again last night she slept through the night and woke up at 6am. Now I need to figure out how to get her to sleep longer in the morning, but so far she has been doing just fine with getting up at 6 and waiting to eat until 7:30/7:45 (I work out sometime between 6:15 & 7:15).

So my dilemma has been solved. No need to get up and feed her at 4am. As I suspected, she does not need to eat during the night anymore. At some point I'm hoping that my sleep cycle reverts back to sleeping the whole night through rather than waking up at those intervals (2:30, 4 and 5). She is doing really well during the day and seems to be eating and sleeping better during the day since we began this process.

She is currently trying very hard to roll from back to front. She spends much of her time on her side watching what is going on behind her. She just needs to figure out how to get her little bum up and over and how to move her arm out from underneath her so she can roll over completely. She is such a good, good baby and we are really enjoying having her around. I know that probably sounds awful, but we had such a horrible, horrible first 9 months with Ryann and I was really dreading having a baby in the house again for that reason. She has been a complete pleasure, though, and I'm enjoying her so much. We love our Georgia Bug!

Balance (2/23/06)

How in the world do we strike balance in our lives? If someone, anyone, has an answer to that question please let me know...


Dave started his new business/career one year ago and as with any new business venture he needs to devote a lot of time to it. It isn't a matter of he wants to - he NEEDS to in order to get it up and going. He took a 60% paycut in order to do this... so basically the equation looks like this:

time at work = money
HOWEVER
time at work = not time at home.

Is any of this making sense? I'm not sure I can accurately articulate my thoughts on this... He wants to be home to be with me and the girls, but he needs to be working. He's not looking to come home at 3 or 4:00 - he simply wants to be home for dinner most nights of the week (which would be at 6:15/6:30). The problem lies in the fact that the best time for him to make contacts with people is between 4-7.

So how does he strike a balance between doing what he needs to do at work and doing what he needs to do at home (spend time with his kids). The girls go to bed at 7:30, so if he works until 6:30/7:00 he basically comes home and puts them right to bed. But if he comes home in time for dinner he misses out on some important call time.

I don't know what the right answer is. I know that it is a constant struggle for him and I wish I could give him the magic answer. I suppose we could have dinner around 7/7:30 so he can join us, but I really dislike the idea of the girls eating dinner and going straight to bed - I think it is better for them to play a little bit before bed... maybe I need to give up that idea?

In re-reading this I feel it is important to emphasize that he is not trying to make gobs and gobs of money... in other words, he is not working with money as the main goal. But with the job change and the paycut, we are not able to cover our monthly bills. He wants to be able to at least pay our bills (especially before we run out of reserves), so it isn't a matter of we want more, more, more and he is focused on that. Make sense? I just don't want anyone to think he is motivated by money... I don't know - I feel like I'm justifying, explaining, making excuses, blah, blah, blah. I guess most of you who read this know what our situation is and I don't really need to explain it... I'm now talking in circles:)

At any rate... I think balance is a difficult issue in many areas. I find this seems to be my largest question in life - how do I balance this and that? I will try to find time to write more on the subject. But for now - anyone have any ideas on this balance issue?

We're up 6 more and down 1 (2/21/06)

I thought our fish tank was kind of empty. 30 gallons of water and 6 smallish fish = empty fish tank in my book.

The Sunday ad for one of the big pet stores advertised neons, black neons, guppies and tetras for $1 each. In my dutch world getting anything for half price is such a bargain you can barely turn it down... soooo off to PetCo we went. Me and the three yahoos went to pick out some new fish to bring home as companions to our current batch (did I mention I took them by myself - no help. I'm getting so brave as I inch closer to 30).

I really, really wanted neons - kind of a nostalgic thing... we had neons in our fish tank when I was growing up so because of that I think they are the perfect addition for our quiet tank. They were sold out. Apparently there are quite a few dutch people in the SW suburbs of Chicago itching to get fish at half price:) So I talked to the guy there and decided on the white tetras (can't put too many guppies in a tank because they get territorial and pick on each other - they were my second choice because they're pretty). We got 6 tetras - $1 each, plus I had a coupon for $2 off so I got 6 fish for $4 - quite a steal if you ask me!! One was floating this morning when we woke up, but we are up 5.

And the verdict: There are too many fish in our tank. I don't like it. I feel like it looks like a pet store fish tank. The tetras are too big. I want neons.

Emergency (2/20/06)

Twice in the last two days I have been driving while an emergency vehicle is coming in the opposite direction. Lights are going, no siren either time. I pulled to the side. Several cars didn't. I get so mad when I see this. I don't understand why these people do not pull over - are we in that much of a hurry that we can't pause for 30 seconds to let an emergency vehicle have a clear road?

Do YOU pull over when an emergency vehicle comes through? What do you think of the people who don't? I have some very nasty thoughts about them that I won't share right now;)

Whats the deal? (2/20/06)

Alright, I'm ticked. I have been faithfully watching what I eat - eating enough to continue nursing, but not going overboard. I have stayed within my point limit each day (weight watchers) and have not done any cheating. I worked out on 5 mornings last week (one less than my usual 6, missed a day due to Georgia's poor sleeping pattern). I did Tae Bo 3 days and lifted weights for 45 minutes 2 days. I have been drinking the necessary amounts of water each day. I have altered my diet so that I am getting most of my points through good, healthy food, rather than try to fill in points with sugary, sweet food. So why the HECK did I GAIN .4 this week??? So far my 4 week journey goes like this:
Week 1: -3.6
Week 2: No change
Week 3: -.8
Week 4: +.4

What?? I get so frustrated with the whole nursing situation. It is important - very important and not to mention free. HOWEVER, it is so frustrating for me. I need to drink enough water, but not TOO MUCH water. Going to the extreme in either direction diminishes the amount of milk one produces. Great - so what is the PERFECT amount of water to drink? I need to eat enough calories to produce milk, but if I eat too many calories, I will gain weight... So what is the exact amount of food that I need to eat? I'm eating healthy and am trying to balance my eating throughout the day - in other words, I have a tendency to not eat much during the day and then try to eat all the rest of my points at night before I go to bed. I have been intentionally trying to spread my points out through the day so that I'm not trying to eat 10 points before I go to bed.

So what do I need to do differently? So frustrated. So frustrated. Am going to Florida the first week of May and desperately do NOT want to be 30 lbs overweight when we go. Ideally would like to at least be able to see my ankles and perhaps not have fat hanging off of my waist. And I REALLY do not want to have to buy a "fat wardrobe" for Florida. I understand that I just had a baby, buy I'm really not enjoying being fat. I know it is my own fault for eating all of that ice cream while I was pregnant, but it was soooo good and soooo fun and Raegan was shoving it down my throat:) Ahhhhgg!

I'm going to chalk it all up to the fact that I'm so strong and have so much muscle and am so buff - you know, muscle weighs more than fat.

Okay - so any ideas from anyone? Do I cut my points? Currently I'm allowed 30 points per day because I'm nursing (normally I would get 20/day). Should I try to cut them down to 28? 26? Should I try to increase them to 32 (sometimes eating a little more increases the metabolism)? Should I stick to it and hope that things start changing? Should I change my workouts (currently 3 days of tae bo - 35 minutes each - and 3 days of heavy weight lifting - 2 days arms, 1 day legs, and vice versa - arms = 45 minutes, legs = 30 minutes)?

I know I'm ranting and probably not making much sense, but I'm very sick of being fat.

My lovely hubby (2/20/06)

Yesterday I woke up sick of being a mom. I was just plain tired of doing it all... being responsible for so many people and things, being depended on by so many people and things, having so many responsibilities, not having much time to myself, etc. The list goes on. I am not complaining about my kids or the fact that I have kids - I love them - but every so often I just want to be an individual again and be alone... yesterday was one of those times.

Dave, being the wonderful man that he is, came downstairs after breakfast, gave me a hug and told me to go out by myself after church, go shopping, go read a book at Borders, or whatever. Just give him a schedule for Georgia and he would take care of it all while I spent some time by myself. He is awesome.

So I went shopping. BY MYSELF. For 5 hours. Just went here and there and anywhere I wanted to go - without getting a child into a car seat. It was very nice:) I have a fantastic husband - truly blessed, I am.

The Marker Escapade (2/15/06)

Earlier today Nora had come upstairs while I was ironing and was messing around in her bathroom. Not unusual. She came in by me after a few minutes and says, "Mom, Barney gave me polka spots!" (Barney is her joined-at-the-hip imaginary friend). Polka Spots - way too cute!
Then, while I was picking up Nora and Ryann's room and then putting Georgia to bed for her 6pm nap, Nora and Ryann were downstairs watching cartoons... I thought. They were pretty quiet, but this is not unusual. After putting Georgia to bed, I quickly called Dave to ask him to stop at the grocery store on his way home. In walks Ryann indicating that she needed her diaper changed. So off we went to change her diaper. It was not until I got her up on the changing table that I noticed that she had marker all over her face and her hands. "Uh oh", I thought - "I wonder what else has marker on it downstairs." Soon after that thought left my brain our resident artist comes upstairs yelling, "Mom! Look at my glove!" I looked and was horrified - Nora had colored her entire hand and most of her arm with blue marker. She was so proud and does not want me to wash it off. I, too, am proud of my little creative genius!

I just had to get pictures to show you:) Please note the following: You can click on the pictures to make them larger AND check out Nora's face - she has marker all over it from wiping her face with her glove;)

Last Night (2/14/06)

I had a date last night. With myself. It was lovely and I think I will go out with myself again - every week, in fact.

I go to a Bible study on Monday nights so I figured that since I'm already out and the Bible study is finished by 8:30, then I should just stay out and find a place to be by myself for an hour and read a book. Holy cow! I haven't read a book in a long, long time! So last night I went to Starbucks for my first date. Ordered my Grande Decaf, Black and got it for free because they didn't have any decaf brewed and I had to wait. So my date began well - who can complain about free coffee?

I sat in Starbucks and read my new book, Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. This is a fictional, yet factual account of the murders that ocurred during the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. So far I am enjoying it and have heard great things about it. If any of you have read it, let me know what you think.

I liked my date. It was nice to sit by myself without anyone crawling on me and no random barking for no reason to get on my nerves. I needed it - Georgia had a bad, bad night on Sunday night and I needed to get out. I was exhausted and thought about just going home and going right to bed instead, but I'm glad I opted to go on my date.

HOWEVER, the date wasn't perfect. Either Starbucks' decaf coffee is so strong that the trace amounts of caffeine in it affected me, or my lovely friends at Starbucks mistakenly gave me regular coffee and not decaf. When Georgia woke up at 1:30 last night (yes, you read that right - 1 fricken 30), I let her cry. I got up and turned the fan on but still heard her fussing over the fan (she was fussing, not crying - there is a difference). She stopped fussing at 2:30, but I didn't fall asleep until about 3:15. I just felt wired - like I would feel if I had drank a pot of regular coffee. I still feel it a little bit now. So that was lovely. But what was lovelier was that I fell asleep around 3:15 and Georgia was back up crying at 3:39. I let her cry (this time she was cying, not fussing). She cried for 15 minutes and slept until I woke her up at 7:30. I was expecting her to be screaming mad and hungry in the morning, but she was so happy and smiley. So the fan will be our new best friend. There is hope my friends!

We're up 6 (2/12/06)

We've got fish again. 6 fish. No names, yet. And no guarantees that they will be alive in the morning. In fact, two of them seem pretty stressed out already - hiding under rocks and in the corner, so they may have to be returned tomorrow for a refund or exchanged for new fish. Here's the line up:
2 tiger barbs
2 male guppies
1 black lyre tailed molly
1 speckled molly

we'll see how these fish do. It was kind of sad to have a fish tank with no fish for a couple of days. I'm happy to have swimmers again

And We're Down 5 (2/10/06)

We've had our first casualties... I was planning to take the girls to the pet store to buy more fish (yes, thats right - I (me alone) was going to take ALL 3 of them at the same time. By myself. 2 hands. 3 kids. By myself.) I came downstairs to get them some lunch and looked in the fish tank and one fish was kind of floating around (alive) while another one was picking at it. The one picking at it had some white fuzziness on its side, too. So I talked to a friend of mine who suggested I get rid of them all. So I did.

Not good. Very sad girl over here. Off to buy Ick medication - 3 kids, by myself:)

Dreams of the Fan (2/10/06)

I'm pretty sure that babies are supposed to gradually sleep more throughout the night and eventually sleep entirely through the night. What is the problem with my baby, then? She is driving me insane.

When Georgia was first born she would regularly sleep from midnight until 5am. Then gradually it turned into 11:30-4, then 11 - 4, then 10:30-4, then up at 8. Now suddenly she's decided that it might be nice to get a pacifier sometime inbetween there and to get up earlier in the morning. Last night I saw her at 2:30 for a pacifier/mobile moment, then again at 4:20 to feed her, then again at 6:40 for a pacifier/mobile moment, again at 6:45, 6:50, and 7:00 before she finally fell back to sleep until I got out of the shower at 7:45. What is going on??? I actually felt pretty good with the once a night feeding - was functioning well and my body seemed to be well adjusted to it. Now I'm dying. I'm at the breaking point, emotionally, almost all the time - near tears and about ready to lose it all the time. This morning she then cried for an hour between 9 & 10 and I couldn't find the tv remote and called Dave sobbing.

How soon is too soon to turn on the fan to drown out the sound of her crying over night? She is so darn cute, but I can't handle this for much longer.

Our New Pets (2/6/06)

My mom and dad bought the girls a gigantic fish tank for christmas. We finally got it this weekend and we set it up yesterday. It is beautiful. We went to PetsMart yesterday afternoon to buy plants and stuff and came home with 5 goldfish. The guy did NOT want to sell us any fish because we had just set the tank up that afternoon and he said we'd definitely have floaters in the morning. No matter how hard you try, you are not convincing a 4 year old that she can't put fish in her new fish tank, so we bought some feeder fish - 12 cents each. Can't get much better than that! They are named, Frankie, Ashton, Barney, Elfis and Sarah and they are the best pets ever. No barking. No scratching at the door. No rubbing their bums on the carpet. No vomitting on the white carpet. No stealing food off of the table. No bringing random dishes and wrappers into the front room as a welcome for the visitors. None of that. They just swim peacefully and gracefully through the nice plastic plants that we gave them. They don't even eat their food (they must be dutch and they're saving it for when they really need it). And to top it all off they were still alive this morning - ALL 5! I should bring them back to PetsMart and show the guy how our fabulous fish lasted through the night in our brand new aquarium. A forced resignation is in order for the guy who doesn't know what he's talking about... floaters, what does he know? He has NO faith in the 12 cent fish.
I think we'll have to trade Barkley for some more fish.

My Life for the Last Week (2/5/06)

Survey says... Yes - I hate my computer and everything that has to do with computers. I had it wireless for a couple of weeks and then all of the sudden on Tuesday it decided - Nope, I don't want to be wireless. So I spent all of last week talking to my friends Christian, Kieren and Ryan in the Phillipines trying to get it back on the wireless track. Each time the guy would get it going wireless and then as soon as I hung up the phone it would stop. So by Friday Dave told me to forget about wireless and just put the stupid thing in our bedroom and be done with it. So on Sunday we did just that.

My best friend in the whole world (for now will be referred to as BFitWW) was telling me today that she was reading a blog where the woman said something about having to finish up her post because she had mountains of laundry to do - or something like that. Anyway, BFitWW told me how awesome she thought it was that this lady was so honest with how bad of a housekeeper she is. So I'm going to share with you how bad of a housekeeper I am:) Only for the sake of impressing BFitWW...

Since I spent all of last week talking to my pals in the Phillipines, by yesterday afternoon our house was in shambles. Let me try to describe it:
Family Room - oh, wait is that what it is? I couldn't see beyond the toys to know where the couch or the tv was. We had fake food all over, blankets, doll clothes, dolls, blocks, cradles, dog toys, and small bits of paper from Nora who recently received a tiny scissors as a gift and has taken to cutting all paper into tiny pieces and leaving the tiny pieces on the floor for a nice ticker tape parade affect. That was just the front half of the family room. The back half - the area we like to refer to as "the part of the room that is supposed to be a "play room" but ends up just collecting the toys in between the times they're being played with in the adult section of the room" - was filled with boxes and paper from fish tank supplies, blankets, and yes, of course, more ticker tape paraphenalia.

Kitchen - crumbs, powdered sugar, doll clothes, bibs, burb rags, bags, magnets, and some dust bunnies. All on the floor. Lets not talk about the countertops.

Dining Room - or the room that is the junk catcher - doll clothes, two packages of toilet paper, a package of bar soap, and yes, of course, more ticker tape paraphenalia.

Front Room (or in MI, the living room) - all the random dishes and wrappers that the dog decided to lick or chew on end up in this room which ends up being a lovely greeting for visitors who enter through the front door. By Sunday afternoon there were two plates, and several wrappers on the floor.

And do I need to describe the upstairs/bedrooms. Didn't think so...

So all this to tell you that I'm really not a horrible housekeeper, but the problem is that sometimes I get so focused on doing one thing, that everything else suffers. Last week it was fixing the computer issue. So today I play catch up - I've already done 3 loads of laundry (2 darks, one white), I have 20 dress shirts to iron while I watch General Hospital (I know, bad, bad, bad), I have to finish grocery shopping when Dave gets home, and then I'm off to Bible Study tonight. I picked up most of the floors last night while Dave, Nora and Ryann were at a SuperBowl party (Georgia is coming down with a cold and there were 19 other small children there == Georgia not coming close to that situation), so it kind of looks better. Need to vaccuum and dust and clean the bathrooms, make dinner, take out the garbage, feed Georgia, etc. etc. And what the heck am I doing on the computer? Withdrawl, I suppose:)