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Thursday, March 31, 2011

I'll take a-week-that-is-likely-to-kill-me for $200, Alex

What do I do when I have an insurmountable amount of work on my plate?  I do everything but work on it. I Facebook, I blog-stalk, I veg out in front of the TV, and I play with my daughter. That is a terrible combination of unproductivness (yes, I made that word up), when I am a semester away from graduating college. I guess you could say I don't handle pressure well, and I do everything to avoid it.

Case in point: I have 10 tabs open on my browser that include journals and articles for my research papers due next week, but here I am blogging. Where does the term case in point come from anyways?

I did better in school than I ever expected to last semester as a new parent. I retained my full-time student status, and even managed to make the Chancellor's list (that's straight A's). I foolishly signed up for 19 hours this semester, and un-foolishly dropped a class to take me down to 16 (full-time is 12). I couldn't have taken 19 hours, what an idiot!

I'm doing pretty well considering I have a tough semester. I'm taking Introduction to Appalachian Music, which is the most boring, and unimportant class that I could ever imagine taking, but I'm making an A so I won't complain...for now. History of Rock and Roll is my favorite. You wouldn't think it would be difficult, but it's for my general education requirement, and the teacher acts like it is a music theory class, which is ridiculous, but I really enjoy learning about my favorite music.

You might be wondering why I have two music classes. Yea, I don't know either. They were among my choices to complete my general education so I figured, why not?

Then there is Sociology of the Family. Soc is my minor, and I really enjoy it. The only problem is, it's a 4000 level course, and the teacher basically told us the first day that she was going to treat it like a graduate level class. So pretty much she acts like her class is the only one we have for the semester.

World Literature is just annoying. The teacher looks like she is on her death bed, and to avoid teaching, she gives us ridiculous amounts of reading to do, which I don't, and then makes us fill out a worksheet afterwards.

The real rock in my shoe is Chemistry II. I look like an idiot in there because I'm surrounded by freshman, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only senior. I took Chem I my freshman year, and various circumstances, i.e. not being able to get into a class, getting pregnant, and having Kynlee, has pushed back the second course until my next to last semester. I did so well in Chem I, and I actually learned, and enjoyed it....but that was three years ago. I have retained pretty much nothing, so picking up from where we left off has been really difficult for me. I'm not going to lie, I think I'm failing. I really want to avoid re-taking it, so as bad as this sounds...no judging...I'm going to try my hardest to make a C, suck it up, and take it for what it's worth. I know, I'm disappointed in myself too. I just have to remember that as a new parent, I am doing better than anyone, including myself, expected.

There is a crazy phenomenon that occurs towards the end of every semester: everything remaining gets crammed into the last few weeks. Next week, all of my classes are clashing into one big pile of crap, that I somehow have to dig myself out of. I have a chem lab report due Monday.... A rock music  research paper on the benefits of music on exercise due Monday.... A chemistry exam MONDAY.... A 12-page research paper on stay-at-home moms, with an annotated bibliography due Tuesday.... A quiz in app music Tuesday...A presentation on my favorite author (J.K. Rowling), Wednesday (because my teacher hates to teach remember? so we do it all)...A listening report for App music due Thursday where I breakdown some awful song and try to explain metering, timing, and syncopation, blah blah blah... and Kynlee's 9-month check-up, with shots, on Thursday... geez I'm exhausted just writing out everything that I have to do. Oh yeah, I am supposed to sleep somewhere in there.

Luckily my mom offered to keep Kynlee this weekend. I really don't want to spend any time away from her, but I need it, or else I will drown next week.

I know this all sounds like I am complaining but I'm not....okay, maybe I am. I'm not going to lie, this sucks!! But I will finish everything, I always do. Even if it does mean staying up all night just to submit something 30 seconds before it's due.

There is a little bit of exciting news though. Hopefully, this summer I will begin a photography course! My dream!

This whole blogging thing is completely counterproductive...so I think I'll take a nap now. :)

Wish me luck!

Sunday, March 27, 2011

There's a First Time for Everything

Milestones are always something a parent looks forward to. You're always waiting for your baby's first steps, first words, and various other firsts that make you excited to watch your child grow. What you don't think too much about  is your baby's first trip to the ER. Let me tell you, it's not fun. In fact, it induces all types of mommy stressors that are not welcomed. 

Baby K has had an ongoing double ear infection for 3 weeks now, and started her third antibiotic last Monday with the hopes that this one might do the trick. Fast forward to last night. She didn't sleep well at all. We just thought her ears were still hurting her. Little did we know that our girl was having an allergic reaction to her medication. 

Corey got up with K this morning so I could sleep in, but that lasted all about twenty minutes. He yelled at me to come look at Kynlee, and my little momma heart started racing when I saw my girl with red swollen ears, and hives starting to break out all over her body. When I say swollen ears, I'm talking my little girl looked like Alfalfa. 

We didn't know if this would stop at hives, or if her airways would start to close up, so we were out the door and on our way to the ER within 3 minutes. We're lucky that it takes us 30 seconds to get the ER, and it's not typically busy on Sunday mornings, so we only waited about 2 minutes before they took us back.

After all is said and done, Kynlee bear is allergic to the penicillin family just like her mama. Her oxygen levels were perfect, so we were just instructed to give her Benadryl throughout the day until it went away. 



My mother-in-law, who is a nurse, came up to help us keep an eye on her, just in case. I wasn't too worried, because she seemed like she was doing a little better with the Benadryl.

You think I'm kidding about her looking like Alfalfa

I couldn't believe how swollen her ears had gotten.

As the day progressed, she didn't seem like she was getting better. In fact, her hives were getting worse. They covered her body, and were starting to swell up. Corey's mom called an ER doctor at her hospital back home for a recommendation. He told us the hospital up here should have given her a shot of Prednisone, which is basically a steroid, so he called us in a prescription in liquid form. 

Needless to say we weren't happy with the ER today. They seemed very passive about the whole situation, and they didn't even keep us long enough to see if she was getting worse or better. I really wish her doctor's office had been open. 

Tonight I gave the poor girl a bath because she had such a rough day, and I was hoping it would cheer her up. Although her ears went down a bit, the hives were still pretty bad.

 {That's enough to hurt a mama's heart}

Now, here I am at 11:45pm with a baby that can't sleep. The last bit of Benadryl seemed to make the hives a little better, but they haven't gone away. We're taking her to her doctor first thing in the morning. Oh, did I mention I have a lab report due and an exam tomorrow? Yeah, that's not going to happen. 

I just want my girl to get better. This has been going on too long. I have no clue what they'll want to do with her ears now that she is allergic to the medicine, and they are still infected :(

If you don't mind, say a little prayer for us tonight, and hope our little bear gets better. 

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

A Heavy Heart

I came across a blog about a family who found out that their daughter, at 4 months old, had a rare form of SMA (spinal muscular atrophy). I won't go into the details about the disease, but I will say its a neuromuscular disease that significantly decreases a child's quality of life, and life expectancy. I read post by post about taking her to the doctor because something wasn't right, and it slowly progressing to staying overnight in the hospital, to getting tests done.

Eventually the child's condition got so bad she had surgery to remove skin in her throat because she was struggling to breath, and once that didn't make things better she was put on breathing tubes, and had a feeding tube placed in her stomach. My heart ripped with every single picture I saw of this poor baby hooked up to monitors and IV's. All she wanted to do was suck on her finger but she couldn't because of the tubes. She couldn't even cry because her vocal chord's became paralyzed.

About a month later the family was given the option of giving their little girl a tracheotomy and letting her go home, with the promise that she will slowly deteriorate, and become completely paralyzed, if she even lived a few more months, or take her off the breathing tubes, and letting her pass peacefully. The mom looked into her baby's eyes, and saw that she was worn down, uncomfortable, and tired, and knew that she couldn't put her through that pain anymore. So the last day, they gave her a bath, which she loved, and held her all day before the breathing tube was taken out, and they had to sit there while their little angle slowly slipped from their arms way too early.

I was broken for this woman and her husband. No parent should have to make the decision when to end their child's life. I couldn't help but imagine if this was our situation. If a doctor told me that I had to decide whether to end my daughter's misery, or keep her around for an uncertain amount of time in pain.

I feel like I am always saying, this will never happen to me, but I am sure that family said the same exact thing to themselves, and look what happened.

You never know how strong, how all-consuming, this love is until you have your own child. I would do absolutely anything for her. I never want to see her endure pain. I never want her to be made fun of, to have her heart broken, to go to the ER, to have a surgery, to have tubes stuck down her throat because she can't breath.

I sit here with puffy and swollen eyes reading this sweet baby's story, and imagining if it was Kynlee. It hurts. I am in physical pain at the thought of her enduring something like this.

I guess what I'm taking away from this is that life is so precious. I hold my girl a little tighter now. I watch her a little more closely, and I sure as hell soak up every second I have with her. I realize that complaining about being tired because of lack of sleep is completely selfish when a family like this would give anything to be in my shoes, if it meant having their angel back.

I hope Kynlee wakes up and wants to sleep in bed with me tonight. I'm feeling like I want to be extra close to her right now.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Picture Sabotuer

It's rare that I get a picture of Kynlee smiling anymore. If an outsider were to look at our family album they would think that she constantly has a dumb expression on her face, or she never puts her tongue in her mouth.
Now that she is very mobile, I have an even harder time trying to get a good picture of her. 

The camera is just another forbidden object of her desire, so every time I sit in the floor with her to take a picture, she tries to obtain it for a chew toy.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:
{This is my favorite. I call it the crawl progression}

Or I get this:

Or this classic face:
{duhhhhhhh}

...and this:

...and the tongue...


The other day I had the hubs take some pictures of us, because being the photographer of the family, I am hardly in any photos. I finally got a picture of her smiling, FINALLY!

Really messed that one up, didn't I?

Oh well, I guess I have to look at it as something endearing. I have to admit, it can be pretty cute. 

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Sleep Saga Continued

It is no secret that Kynlee hates to sleep. You can read my blog to know that we struggle with having consistency in her sleep patterns. Sometimes she is awesome, sometimes I feel like a zombie because I didn't get any sleep, there is no in between for her.

The few weeks leading up to our Florida trip she had a pretty consistent schedule, but it was something that we needed to change before my mom watched her for a week. She would usually go to sleep around 8:30-9 and wake up around 3 or 4 to eat. That's not that bad, except that she didn't want to be put back in her crib after that, she wanted to sleep with us. I love sleeping next to her...in theory. You see, the hubs is a big guy, he's about 6'5''! That, plus a thrashing-limbed baby, leaves little room for the 5'4'' mama in the bed. Besides, we wanted Kynlee to get used to being put back in her crib, so my mom wouldn't have to deal with it.

We figured out a great solution. When we laid her back in the crib after she ate, we would roll her on her side and get her real close to the bumper, then put our head as close to her as we could, and patted her back until she went to sleep. We tricked her! We made her think she was sleeping next to one of us, but we would sneak away, and enjoy the rest of the night in our own bed.

Fast-forward to Florida. One of the things I was most excited about was the amount of sleep I was going to get that week. I could sleep all day if I wanted to (I did sleep until 4pm on one rainy day, no judging)! When we got back Kynlee was sick and had a double ear infection. Going from unlimited sleep to 30 minutes of sleep at a time was a harsh transition. It was a big welcome-back to motherhood.

She refused to sleep in her crib when we got back. We could lay her down for naps no problem, but come bed time she wanted to be in our bed, even if we weren't there. I was thinking it would be no problem because we could just go back to what we tried before. Little did we know that she discovered how to sit up by herself while we were gone. Now every time we lay her down, and she doesn't want to sleep in the crib, she'll shoot straight up, even if she is exhausted, and I can't leave her there for a few minutes to fall asleep herself because she doesn't know how to lay back down. I also had to lower the crib because I discovered her standing up after a nap. It was already hard for me to lay her down without bothering her because I'm short, now it's even worse because I have a longer way to lay her down. It's just a bad combination.

I guess all of this rambling just means I'm tired. I'm not complaining because I would much rather be tired and exhausted because of her being awake, than her not being here at all. I'm just having a hard time staying focused in school because I'm exhausted. I miss being able to sprawl out in bed, I would take up the whole thing If I could. I just hope she gets better soon, so we can all feel a little more rested.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Florida!...And the Images That Almost Weren't

I have so much to catch up on, I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll start with the honeymoon. Don't get too excited, I won't be sharing alll the details ;)

 When Corey and I got married, we really didn't have the time and money for a honeymoon, so we thought we would wait a year or so before planning where we would go. We decided we would take a week off to go somewhere while someone watched our little girl. This was before we had Kynlee so I had no clue how hard it would be leaving her for even a night, much less an entire week. However we both really wanted a vacation, and time alone.

I've been reading Harry Potter since I was in 6th grade (I know this doesn't sound like it relates, but I promise it does!). I read it in hiding until about senior year when I finally decided to come out of the closet with it, because I could no longer hide my nerdy side. When I met Corey he kind of just laughed at me and thought it was endearing that his girlfriend was a closet nerd when it came to books, and the Harry Potter world. When the 6th movie premier came out, I made him watch the trailer,  and he agreed to watch all the previous movies with me. Little did I know I was stirring a little Potter nerd inside of him as well.

He read books 4-7 (he wouldn't read the first three, and I told him he wasn't a true nerd because of it) in about three weeks. Sorry hubs, I know you were trying to hide it from people. Then we were among the first people to show up for the midnight premier of the 6th movie.

This is where all of this ties into our honeymoon plans. I found out that Universal Studios was planning on adding the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" to their Islands of Adventure. At first, I was skeptical because I thought a theme park dedicated to the series would be completely lame, but I kept seeing stories, and pictures about it, and became increasingly excited to the point where I made Corey promise we would go there some day.

Finally last November we decided to go ahead and plan a trip to Orlando to visit Universal Studios for our spring break. With the help of our AMAZING friend Martha, we were all set up for a week in a beautiful condo in sunny Florida.



{yes I took a long hot bubble bath surrounded by candles every night}

Leaving Kynlee for a week was so difficult, I missed her entirely too much, but I must say it was nice to have a week alone with Corey. I'm not complaining about the amount of sleep I got either :) I love Kynlee Bear, but child hates to sleep!


When we arrived at the gates to Island's of Adventure, I was filled with much anticipation. If you are a huge Harry nerd like I am, then I'm sure you understand. I was promised to enter into what looked exactly like the movies, walking through the streets of Hogsmeade, up to the front gates of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.




 When the gates opened, we sprinted (okay maybe a brisk walk/slight jog) to the Harry Potter section so we could ride The Forbidden Journey, which was hands down, the coolest ride I have ever been on. Even though we might have received a couple of points and laughs running through the park, we turned around and laughed at the people who didn't get there first and had to wait hours to ride it, when we only had to wait 5 minutes. So HAH!

The line for the ride takes you through Hogwarts castle, which was incredible. They went all out with every detail, trying to incorporate as much of the book and movies as possible.

{Sorry for the awful quality of these pictures, but I was in a very dark building, with my point-and-shoot, and I had to use flash...eck I hate flash!)

 {The door to Dumblebore's office}



{The sorting hat}

Then we got to explore Hogsmeade, it was just amazing. I felt like I was really there (except for the 80 degree weather, contrasting with the fake snow on top of the buildings. No complaints about the weather though!)














We ate at the Three Broomsticks, which was very cool. I'm not just saying this because I was eating at a restaurant from the book, but the food was soooooooo good. To top it off we tried the Butter Beer. I wasn't expecting to like something that was described as "butter beer," but we couldn't go to the World of Harry Potter, and not try it. We split a frozen one, and had to fight for the rest of it because it was the most delicious drink I have ever tasted, I don't even know how to describe it....we got one every day haha.




Harry Potter wasn't the only part of the park, but definitely my favorite. I love roller coasters, and Universal has a new one called the Rip Rocket (or something like that), and it was AWESOME! Not only do you get to choose your own music to listen to for the ride, its one of the best roller coasters I've ever ridden. The first part is the scariest, but I guess that is was makes it so different. Usually a roller coaster will take you up an incline, before dropping you.....well, this coaster takes you SLOWLY straight up a 90 degree incline...and there are no shoulder straps on it...scaryy!!! Well my favorite roller coaster, quickly became my most hated. Our last day there, our last ride if the day, it ate my camera :( I was so sad. Not going to lie, cried like a baby. All of my pictures were on it, and I couldn't get them back. I hate to say it, but nothing could cheer me up after that so we went back to the hotel to spend the rest of the day by the pool. Not to mention 3 days worth of walking around two theme parks did a number on my feet.

{The coaster that ate my camera}

Alas, there is good news. The morning we left, Corey told me to call the park's lost and found to see if they might have found my camera. I wasn't expecting them to have it, but I thought I would try. The guy on the phone kept describing things that sounded like my camera, and I got more excited with every "is it silver?" and  "is it a 10 megapixel?" then he said the magical sentence "is there a picture of a baby in a swing with striped leggings?" What are the odds that they would have my camera!?!? It was definitely beaten up, and I'm pretty sure it's unusable, but I had my pictures back, and thats what was important to me. As bad as that may sound, I will probably never go back to Harry Potter World, and I wanted to remember it forever.

Even though Harry Potter was the main reason for our trip, we had a great time just being together, and enjoying the warm weather. It was a great way to thaw out from Boone, aka the North Pole.





At the end of the week, we were so excited to get back to our little girl. I was sad that she learned how to say Mama while I was gone, but at least she didn't start crawling yet. Btw, I still haven't heard her say it myself :(



If you have no clue about anything that I described about the theme park, I'm sorry, but like I've said many times...I am a HUGE Harry Potter nerd. I'm also sorry if this was an extremely long, boring post...maybe if I had kept up with my blog and split this up while we were there I wouldn't have to apologize. Oh well, I will know next time!

(I had someone ask how "getting my butt back in shape" went. I will make a blog post about that soon!)

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

I'm Baaackk!

I made my blog private a month or so ago because it had been forever since I made a new post, and I felt bad leaving it up. Life had gotten so busy with school and Kynlee, so I just didn't have the time or will power. 
I thought I didn't want to blog anymore because it was taking up too much time, and maybe I was getting tired of it, but I have missed it! 
I don't get to see a lot of my friends because I'm either in school or with Kynlee, so I don't really have a chance to talk to anyone about life, and motherhood. I realized this was my outlet for feelings, and I was muting it by blocking it to everyone. 
There would be times throughout the day that something would happen, and I though I want to write about this on my blog and then I remember I wasn't doing that anymore.

For the longest time I thought that every post I wrote had to have pictures in it. I would take pictures about my day and edit them before putting them up, but that takes a lot of time, because I take A LOT of pictures and only use a few.e. Even though I would like to have a lot of pictures, some posts are simply going to be plain, but thats okay. People come to my blog to ready about my life, not look at pictures. 

Anyways! I have a lot of catching up to do on here, and I am excited about it!

Thanks for coming back, and I hope you still enjoy reading my little blog :)

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