Put Your Big Girl Panties on &Deal With It!

Ryleigh, as you all know is my only daughter. She is the youngest of three and she is our last child that we will have. Ryleigh is my princess and my sweet angelic baby. (most of the time) She will be 17 months on Sunday. Where has the time gone? There's no way she can almost be 1 1/2 years old. It's impossible, right? Tell me I'm right, please!
Let's rewind to a week and a half ago. We were going through our normal nightly bath time routine. Ryleigh is always the first out of the tub. I dry her off and lather her up with some yummy smelling bedtime lotion and send her off to her room to wait until I get Austyn out of the tub. She never makes it to her room because she dawdles. Last week, after an attempt to actually make it to her room she came right back. She pulls out the potty chair, lifts the lid and tries to sit down. She didn't quite make it and ended up with one foot in the potty and one still on the floor. She looked like she could use some assistance, so I helped her out. I asked her if she needed to pee-pee, and low and behold, what does the child do? She pees! In the potty! Can you believe it?! I was shocked, excited, thrilled, overjoyed, happy and a little sad. We all (including the boys) shouted hooray and clapped our hands and told her what a great job she did. I was a little teary-eyed.
A few days later as I was trying to cook dinner she comes running down the hallway with her diaper half on, half off. She was desperately trying to get her diaper off and was having some trouble. She finally got it off and she ran right back down the hallway to the potty and sat down. And would you believe that she peed in the potty...again!
Then there was last night. As we were getting ready for a bath, I asked her if she needed to potty and she shook her head no, so I plunked her in the tub. Once she was done with her tub and was all lotioned up and ready for jammies, she pointed at the potty. In disbelief, I asked if she needed to pee-pee and she sat right down and had a very determined look on her face. For the third time, she peed in the potty! Am I blessed with a potty training genius baby or what?!
I do have to admit that I am not ready for this at all. I'm not ready for her to be such a big independent girl. She is growing so fast and she is so smart. She is such an amazing little girl. I really wish that I could be Adam Sandler in the movie Click. I need that remote to pause time and to watch my kids grow up in slow motion. Everything is happening so fast. One minute they are tiny little babies who need my help with everything, and the next thing I know they are running around like wild animals playing the 'run away from mommy' game and they don't need my help for as much anymore.
This is all very bittersweet for me. Once she is potty trained, it will be official that she is a big girl. That is scary. At the same time, I won't ever have to potty train another baby again! Hallelujah! lol.
Mark thinks she is ready for potty training since she obviously shows such a great interest in it. He's probably right and I should probably take advantage of this opportunity Ryleigh is presenting to me. But really, do they make panties that small? I know, I'm looking for excuses to keep her a baby and I shouldn't. I guess I should just put my big girl panties on and deal with it!

Happy Easter from Santa on My Birthday!

Our Easter morning started off in a different yet amusing way. Austyn didn't realize that anything was left in his room by the Easter Bunny. He climbed into bed with me and cuddled up. I asked him if his room was clean, and he said, it was. I insisted that we take a look just to make sure. He was a little annoyed, but humored me anyway. He opened up the door, pointed in and said, see, my room is clean. And just as he said that, he looked in and saw a basket with a shovel, rake, garden hoe, a kite, a stuffed bunny, a bunny parachuter thing and a chocolate bunny. He got this bewildered look on his face and then he shouted...MOM! SANTA BROUGHT ME GARDEN STUFF! I had to explain to him that it was Easter and that Santa actually wasn't the one who brought the gifts. He didn't care who brought him the stuff, he was just excited. He said it a few more times that day that Santa had been to visit, and then he changed it up and said he got it for his birthday!
Ryleigh, who gets out of her bed, opens the door and walks out any old time she pleases decided that this wasn't one of those days. She found her Easter Basket and she dumped everything out onto the floor and found her shiny, foil wrapped chocolate Easter Bunny. Well, apparently, our Easter Bunny didn't really think things through when he left that in a 16 month olds bedroom! She unwrapped her bunny and had a few nibbles of it before we caught her! She was so hurt that she couldn't eat chocolate for breakfast. Live and learn, right?
Taylor, the big kid of them all, just casually came out of his room, and said, Mom, the Easter Bunny brought me a bunch of stuff. Austyn, you can have my old gardening stuff because I have new ones now. He was excited, but nowhere near as excited as Austyn was.
This year, we opted to stay home for Easter rather than travel down to Mission Viejo and visit with family. We are trying to save money, not spend it, so this was our best option. We had two families over for lunch and a 200 some odd egg hunt! We had the Villasenor Family over. They used to be our neighbors but moved to a bigger house right before Mark came home from his last deployment. Jessica and I get together twice a week for play-dates and much needed adult conversation. The Moore Family also joined us. I met Cassidy last year at the Fresno Zoo while we were on a field trip. She was one of the few other parents who opted to go along with the kids and tour the zoo at her own pace. We ended up hanging out because we kept running into each other and the boys were already good friends. We had a wonderful lunch followed by the egg hunt.
It took the kids about 10-15 minutes to find all of the eggs, and even after that they were still finding them in the less conspicuous places. Each kid walked away with a basket that was overflowing with eggs. Some eggs had money, some had candy and others had little party favors. Ryleigh was the only one who didn't have an abundance of eggs.
She was a little apprehensive about it all. She walked around and looked at all of the eggs and she eventually decided to pick them up. Taylor, being the wonderful big brother he is helped her gather some eggs in her basket. His basket was full in just a couple of minutes. I had to tell him to stop and let everyone else gather the eggs. Austyn was the most enthusiastic about it all. His exciting was exhausting for some of us! lol. He was just running around yelling that he found eggs, and wow there were SO many eggs and they were all over the place!!! He is such a funny guy.
The entire day went awesome and the kids all had a blast! Here is a picture of all of the kids that participated. I say that because baby Callie, for obvious reasons (she's a baby) was the only one who didn't join in!From Left--->Right Jason (2), Chance (7), Ryleigh (16 months), Taylor (7), Hailey (4) Austyn (3) and James (19 months)

Patriotic Program

Taylor dressed and ready for the Patriotic Program

Tonight, Taylor, and the rest of the 1st grade and 2nd grade (I think) put on a Patriotic Program for their parents. They did an awesome job! Every single person had a part in the program which was awesome! Some people were dressed up in costumes and some just 'introduced' songs. It was well put together, and we really enjoyed it. The kids who didn't wear costumes wore dark jeans and white polo shirts. They sang The Star Spangled Banner started to get a little bit grumpy towards the very end, but we quieted her down with some and I almost started to cry. It was so moving to hear all of these 6-8 year old kids singing this song with such conviction. Austyn fully enjoyed hearing all of the songs and then asked me why Taylor was talking. Ryleigh sat on my lap and swayed back and forth to the music the entire time. She goldfish and milk. Taylor spoke his part into the microphone and he totally reminded me of Alfalfa from The Little Rascals because of his delivery. He got a few giggles from the crowd. There was one little boy, he is so tiny. He had to stand on his tip toes and reach his little head up as high as he could just to reach the microphone. lol. I have memorized Taylor's part. Here it is, "She was inspired to write this hymn while atop Pike's Peak in Colorado while she was visiting the World's Fair in Alabaster City in Chicago." He even picked up an extra part because one classmate didn't show up! I don't remember what that part was though. Here are some pictures, we hope you enjoy them....
Enter Stage Left...

Taylor sitting in between Dennis the Menace and Tyler the Cutie Pie. lol

And we salute our Military Service Men and Women...
Taylor's best friend, Chance was Francis Scott Key. He looks so cute in his costume!
Singing The Star Spangled Banner.
These two little kids were awesome at singing! They had solo parts.
Waiting for his turn to speak.
Reciting his lines. He did so awesome!

Pregnant Women, People with HIV and Cancer BEWARE:

My wonderfully sweet child, Austyn has contracted HUMAN PARVO-VIRUS B19: FIFTHS DISEASE. I know some of you are probably thinking, "PARVO-VIRUS? HOW THE HELL DID YOUR KID GET THAT? DON'T DOGS GET THAT?!?" Well, first let me put your minds to ease that my children aren't sharing bowls with the dog. haha. Secondly, feline, canine and human parvo-viruses are non transferable. Meaning, if Roscoe has parvo, none of us can get it. If we have parvo (which by the way is common) he (the dog) can't get it. So now that you know my kid(s) aren't swapping spit with any ones dog, I'll explain the disease a little to you.
Actually many of you have probably heard of "Fifths Disease." I first learned of this disease while I was pregnant with Taylor. I wanted to learn as much as I could about things to avoid and things to not do during pregnancy. Fifths Disease/Parvo, whatever you want to call it can be very harmful to pregnant women, people with HIV and people with cancer. Fifths Disease is most commonly spotted by the "slapped appearance" on one's cheek. The rash usually accompanies this slapped look. The rash is described as a 'lacy pattern' on the skin. The rash isn't typically itchy, and can be widespread to the trunk and limbs. You are most contagious before the rash even appears. Once the rash appears you are said to not be contagious anymore, however our pediatrician advised us that he would still be considered contagious for the next two weeks! Children presenting the rash are not prohibited from attending school since they have most likely already spread the disease since it is most contagious before the rash appears. There is no treatment for the disease because it is a virus. DUH. Austyn will stop taking his Claritin since it isn't doing anything for him except drugging him up. We were prescribed Motrin in case he develops a fever. The very first symptoms of the disease are very misleading. You think your kid just has a cough or a cold, and then here comes the rash. Cold symptoms are the first symptoms to appear. That isn't to say that you should be paranoid every time your child catches a cold, but in case they start getting a rash, at least now you will know what they have. Possibly, anyway.
There isn't anything you can do to prevent yourself or anyone else from getting this disease, except get it and become immune to it. Most adults are immune to it as we have most likely had it at one point in time or another. It is fairly common in young children. We were told that there was an outbreak of fifths disease at the CDC (daycare) on base. So, someone somewhere caught this disease, and has spread it around quite effectively. The rash will go away soon, hopefully, and he will be okay through it all. The rash however could resurface in 4 months time. Its not a guarantee that it will or won't, but a possibility. So, we'll be on the lookout for slapped cheeks!
I am so relieved that I know what is wrong with him, however, I still wish there was something I could do to help. I think as a mother I feel helpless and awful when there is literally nothing I can do to help the situation. Its just that natural mothering instinct in me, I guess.
So, yep that's that. Austyn has this 'disease,' and he didn't get it from sharing bowls or swapping spit with the dog, he just simply caught it from breathing the air outdoors.

Seriously....What is Wrong with My Kid?

Last Tuesday, when Roscoe had an appointment for his assortment of issues, Ryleigh and Austyn were at our friend's house. Our friends watched them for us, and I was thankful for that. Well, we ended up staying at their house for dinner. They didn't have anything out of the ordinary, just spaghetti and salad. We have had spaghetti numerous times. As we are eating, I start to notice that the side of his face is bright red and it looks like he has bumps on his face. I take a closer look, and think, well maybe its from playing outside today. Its possible. Well a couple of days go by and over the days his rash on his face seems to come and go when he eats. He isn't eating anything different or new. So, I think okay, well if it does it again, we are going straight to the Dr. It didn't do it again, until yesterday. We were all outside enjoying the day. He was riding his big wheel up and down the driveway while I cleaned the truck. I looked up and noticed that his legs looked awfully red. So, I call him over and I take a closer look. He has this red splotchy spotty looking rash all over his legs and arms. That was the last straw! We packed up the kids and went straight to the hospital. We were there for about an hour and a half or so and the Dr. walks in. She looks at him. And then she begins to ask me all the usual questions that you would typically ask when dealing with a sick child or a child who has a rash.

Has he eaten anything new? NO.
Have you changed laundry detergents? NO.
Does he have a history of allergies? NO.
Does he have any food allergies? NO.
Has he had a fever? NO.
Has he had diarrhea? NO.
Has he been vomiting? NO.
Has he been itchy? NO.
Does he appear to be in pain?
NO. NO, NO, NO! The answers to every single question were NO! So then she says, well I think its an allergy, we'll get him started on some Claritin, and hope it clears up! WHAT?!?! Are you kidding me? You didn't even get a good look at his 'rash'. And you 'hope' that the claritin clears it up. GEE Thanks! Next time I have a big gaping wound, remind me to not come see you, because you might just put a band aid on it and say, Oh, that should take care of it! The doctors that work in our urgent care clinic really seem to have a lack of interest. They have that "who cares" attitude and act like they are so bothered when they have to come in and see us. They don't do a good job at all and they surely don't seem like they take pride in the work that they do! The nurse came in to discharge us and she stated, well we don't have any paperwork for you....because we don't know what it is!! THEN FIND OUT WHAT THE HELL IT IS! I just want to grab these people by their fat little heads and shake them until they scream, and say, "THIS IS MY CHILD! PLEASE HELP HIM!" It's their job, their skill, their duty, and supposed to be their passion. They didn't just skim through medical school and think that they hated it the entire time. It takes dedication, passion and hard work to become a doctor in this world today. Forgive me for ranting and raving like a mad woman, but when it comes to my children, mediocrity and laziness is not accepted!
Now it seems as though the rash is here to stay. The intensity of the color seems to vary. Sometimes it is light pink, and other times it is very bright pinkish red. I've noticed that when we spend time outdoors it seems to "flare" up. I'll make sure to bring this to the Dr's attention tomorrow. I'm also taking all of the pictures along with us in case the rash decides to go into hiding or light pink mode!

Here is a picture of Austyn's face (LEFT side) that I took on Friday:
I took these pictures of him yesterday when we got home from the Urgent Care Clinic. These pictures were taken around 6PM:

This is his LEFT arm:
This is his RIGHT arm:
This is the FRONT of his legs. Doesn't look too bad here:
This is a closeup of the FRONT of his legs:
This is a closeup of the BACK of his LEFT leg:
This is his RIGHT cheek, yesterday:
This is his FACE today after we were outside for about 1 hour. It was early this morning, so it wasn't hot yet.These pictures were taken around 11:30AM:
This is his LEFT arm, today:
This is his RIGHT arm, today:
The FRONT of his LEGS, today:
His LEFT leg, Today:
His RIGHT leg today:
This is the back of his LEFT leg:

Silly Faces

Again, there really isn't anything to report. Our days are sailing by! We are almost to the halfway mark for Mark's return! Its exciting, and amazing that so much time has gone by already. Time flies when you are having fun. Speaking of fun, our paper chain had a fun task for us to do on Friday. Every day that Mark is gone we either read a message from him or we do something that he tells us to do. Some days he might say he loves us, or hopes we have a wonderful day. Other days he tells us to have a game night, or to have a movie night. Friday night his message told us to take lots of silly pictures and then email them to him. So, that's what we did. Here are the results from those pictures. The kids had so much fun! We hope you can laugh or at least smile at our silliness!

My Fourth Child....

Is Roscoe. He just has never ending issues. Or so it seems. He has battled chronic ear infections, won the war against fleas and endured several 3AM bouts of diarrhea! Now, you know why I call him the fourth child. It's always something with this boy! None-the-less he is an awesome dog! He's so mellow, loving, loyal, playful and huge. He is about twice the size of our old neighbor's Labrador Retriever! Of course they had a female. lol.
never had fleas before. These cats are constantly in my backyard and I am very tempted to take my mom's advice. Her advice was to throw catnip in the neighbor's yard. It isn't the nicest, or even the right thing to do, but at least it would be funny, right? Well just recently Roscoe contracted fleas from the neighbors' wandering cats, I'm assuming. I think I am going to plant some lavender. I read somewhere that cats don't like lavender and it is a natural feline repellent.
Okay, so back to the Rosc as I like to affectionately call him. :o) After we won the war against the fleas, our poor Roscoe started Alopecia or hair loss in layman's terms. At first I thought, oh, its just from where he was itching when he had fleas. Well, then the hair loss spread. The backs of his hind legs are almost bare and he has a few spots on his back and one big bald spot on his tail. His bald spot on his tale is most likely due to an allergic reaction to fleas. I started to get really concerned once his hair loss seemed more widespread. He also got another ear infection. This time only in one ear. And then over the last week I've started noticing chunks, not flakes, but chunks of dandruff all over his back. He is in awful shape. We've never had such a problematic dog before! If it isn't one thing it's another. He's lucky I love him!
So, off to the vet we went. Our appointment was at 2:30 yesterday afternoon. We didn't leave until 4! I think that was our longest visit in history. lol. He had an impression done of his dandruff chunks, an impression of his belly where he had red bumps, a skin scrape of his tail, a smear from his ear and blood drawn from both front legs. He got the works to say the least. All of the impressions, scrape and smears were ready on the spot. He has a yeast infection in his ear. No surprise there. That's the story of his life. We treat and we treat until we are out of meds, but yet the yeast always seems to come right back again. He has some yeast spots on his belly along with a little fungal matter. The dandruff showed no fungus or yeast. His scrape showed no mites and mange was ruled out. We have to wait until next week for his blood test results.
The vet says one of two things is causing all of his problems. Its either allergies or it is hyperthyroidism. His symptoms all fit the hormone disorder, except for his itching. He has begun to consume large quantities of water and has had a very small increase in appetite. Enough to make him gain about 6 pounds since his last visit. He urinates frequently and he literally takes about a minute to finish peeing! If the tests come back positive he will be give hormones. If they come back negative, we start from scratch and we go on an allergy hunt!
In the meantime Roscoe is on antibiotics, anti-inflammatory medication, and he has spray for his belly and feet. Wish us luck with this whole process and hope that our Roscoe gets better!!

She LOVES her "Daw-Daw" LOL

Hot or Cold? It can't be both!

So, really, we don't have a whole lot to write about. lol. The weather has been awesome for the most part. Its been beautiful lately, and we are spending more and more time outdoors. Taylor had his Little League Tryouts on Saturday. Everything went okay, except for the weather! After having spent the entire week outside and enjoying the sunshine, this was the day that we needed optimal weather. No such luck. It was freezing and the wind was blowing so hard! So, it can't be hot one day and cold the next! The tryouts lasted almost two whole hours which was just ridiculous because it could have been over with in like 15-30 minutes! Poor Ryleigh was shivering the whole time and Austyn was bored. Taylor did okay. He didn't give his all for some reason. He was just out there being silly, and because of that they said they would put him (along with the other kids) on the tee ball team. I was livid, and I spoke up, because that's what I do. lol. I said, I DO NOT think so! My son has played tee ball for two years and coach's pitch for two years! There is NO way you are putting him on the dang tee ball team! That's for baby's! My three year old is on the tee ball team! Taylor is far too advanced for coach's pitch! So, we had to stay for an extra hour to sit and watch all of the 8-9 year old kids swing and miss. Taylor was the absolute dead last kid to hit! He got up there and hit 3 balls out of 5 off of the pitching machine! He did AWESOME! AND, he hit lefty which isn't even his strongest! The coach's were impressed and said, if he hits that good lefty, we we don't even want to know how good he does when he hits right!! So, I said, yeah, that's what I thought. Although, he is my child, I don't think I am biased. The kid has skills! Austyn does too! Austyn has a crazy arm, and he hits pretty good too! What can I say, my kids are talented. lolTaylor at tryouts on Saturday.Taylor being silly.

Austyn got a hair cut this weekend. Not really a big to-do or anything exciting. He was excited about it because it was my friend "Smeather" as he calls her who cut his hair for him. She has a cosmetology license and she does everyone's hair, except that's not her job. I'm not sure why she doesn't work at a salon.Austyn after his haircut and bath.How nice it is to not have to leave your house for a haircut. lol

Afterwards she trimmed up Ryleigh's hair. When she was a baby, she had her little bald spot on the back of her head, like most babies do. So, as she has gotten older the spot where she was bald is shorter than the rest of her hair. Heather just trimmed up the sides. She only cut 1/2 an inch off. You can't tell until you wash her hair because then it is all even.She never budged because she loves having her hair brushed/fixed and played with. Afterall, she IS a girl! Just hanging around on the swing.

So, that's about it for now. Just wasting time, trying to find silly things to blog about! lol. Here are some pictures of the kids...ENJOY!

I love close-ups of the kids in black and white!