More walking ...

Well, I kind of felt like crud today due to almost no sleep in the last 24 hours (mostly because of babyboy but partly because I spent some time reading when I could have been sleeping!) but I went walking anyway. Tonight I managed to get 2 miles in the same time it took me to get 1.5 miles last week. I even ran a few laps in the middle of all my walking. This is quite impressive for me. I don't generally like to be active or moving honestly so I was very happy with myself.
I have to admit, it does feel good when I'm done. I get an energy rush. I should figure out a way to do this more in the middle/earlier part of the day, but for now, I do it when dh gets home from work. My 3 year old has a park district class, so we have to be there anyway, why sit when I can walk?
And I have to admit, dh bought me a coke from McDonalds today. I didn't finish it. After walking, I just wanted water. And, tonight when getting a dessert, I originally picked up a Hershey bar, but then I set it back down for a granola bar. This is serious! I would like to lose ten pounds, I would like to firm up muscles, and I want to be healthier ... apparently I'm starting to actually do something about it as opposed to just thinking about what to do about it! This is a big deal for me!! Now if I start back up with some Pilates DVDs ... well, I don't know ... pigs may just start flying! LOL!

Deal or No Deal?

My family is in love with this show.
We watched it last time they ran it for a week. And tonight, they started airing it for another week.
All 5 of us sit around and watch it (well, okay, babyboy is only there because we are holding him, but you get it). And we all sit around and yell "Deal Deal Deal!!" or "No deal! No deal! No Deal!" and we get excited when they pick a case with a low number and we all sigh when it's a case with a big number. Dh and I talk about if we would deal or not and if we won, what we would do with the money ... okay, that's easy. We want to buy a house. So by default, depending on the amount 75-100% of our winnings would go to a house!
But it's fun. And yes, it's TV. We have family time by watching TV. I know some who would read that and think, you can't have family time by watching TV. But we do. We don't generally watch TV together often, so I don't feel bad about it.
And thanks to me reading Freakonomics today, I now know that TV viewign time is not correlated to good grades so I feel even less guilty watching it for this week than I did watching it the last week it was on! LOL!

Now, as if watching it wasn't enough, we can now play the game ourselves at Deal or No Deal. Tonight I would have won 192,000 and my dh would have walked away with 300,000. I only wish it were real LOL!!! Although I have been encouraging dh to apply for the show. He's good looking, he's got a good personality ... and he's smart about deals or no deals!!!

Fun Weekend!

We just had a blast of a weekend!
My husband's mom came to visit us from NH. Now, she is not a typical MIL you read about. I LOVE her! We get along very well and I just adore her. She's not that you-stole-my-son-from-me-and-now-we-need-to-compete-with-each-other sort. Nor is she the you-are-doing-everything-with-my-grandkids-wrong-so-I-need-to-tell-you-how-to-do-it-better-than-you-are type either. So we really enjoy it when we get to see her. And to top it all off, this is the first time she has seen babyboy! So that was so much fun. She came in Thursday. And we chatted and chatted adn chatted. Friday woke up, hung out, and after lunch drove up to the dells to play at an indoor water park. So we spent the weekend swimming and chatting and just having a blast.
Unfotunately the trip was a short one - she left already :-( I'll miss her. The kids will miss her. But I have to admit I am freaking tired right now.
We ran around a lot, babyboy still isn't sleeping wonderfully and there was really no down time to nap during the day and get breaks. So it was go all day, stau up late, wake up with babyboy to eat every 2-3 hours, and then run around some more!
And now, my dh has a cold, my 3 year old has a runny nose since yesterday and my 6 year is complaining of it today. I don't feel all that hot either (although I'm thinking it's from lack of sleep).
I'm terrified we are going to have a bad week around here full of crabby, tired, people. But I have to say, I'm glad it will all happen after mil went back home. I would have felt so bad had she flown out here to deal with sick crabbies! She got to see everyone happy and running around and having fun! So that is good!

Walking ...

So I think I mentioned when getting blood work done for life insurance, we discovered dh has a high cholesterol number and mine is within normal, but it's almost the highest normal number you can get.
So dh and I are on a mission to change how we eat and to start exercising.
Well, that day to start exercising came yesterday. We both signed up for the www.walkacrossillinois.org program in an effort to get motivation.
Yesterday I walked 1.5 miles at the community center indoor track. Tonight I walked too.
Dh walked 1 mile with me yesterday. He didn't come today. He was busy - he needed to do work. I'm kind of bummed. I am worried about him. I know he will always be busy and I'm worried he'll keep pushing the exercise to the back burner. I do not want my husband having a heart attack in a few years because he was too busy to do anything to prevent it. Plus, it's nice having someone to walk with, ya know?
I told him that. That I don't want him to be too busy for this. I do not want my husband to work himself to death.
I have to say I like the walking. I feel energized after doing it ... which is a rare feeling these days! I think I will go over tomorrow and get another 1.5 miles in if I can. Dh's mom is coming into town around 2ish so I have to do a lot to get ready for that. But I figure I can spare a half an hour (okay so it would really be like an hour to get all the kids bundled up, get over there, walk, get bundled up again, and get home) for my health. So I can see my grandkids! Plus, maybe it will give me energy to do the last minute housecleaning I want to get done before she walks in. although, I'm sure she will be so busy looking at the kids, she won't notice the state of the house! But I still have to try!
and I can't wait until it gets warmer out. The indoor track is 14 laps for a mile. Yeah, 21 is 1.5 miles - it gets a bit boring by about lap, 4! But it's still too cold to be out with the kids (I think it's supposed to be like 20 with windchill tomorrow).
But when it does get warm out ... I found this site which I htink is pretty neat ... Gmap Pedometer!
Anyway, I have made it 2 days now! I'm kind of proud of myself!! LOL!

Ha ha ...

Don't ask why, just do it .. click the link. Gizoogle
It at least made me smile ;-)

I jinxed myself ...

I should have never posted before that things were starting to feel normal around here. Because I lied.
Well, anyway, things here have just been crazy.
Needless to say, as I mentioned in the last post, we took babyboy to urgent care and were sent home. The next morning we went to our doc becuase he still looked like he had labored breathing. Well, our ped basically sent us right to the ER right there. She was upset they didn't just do that the previous night at urgent care.
So baby boy was in the hospital from Thursday to Saturday night. It just sucked.
I felt so bad. When we originally got to the hospital he was dehydrated, retracting badly, his heart rate was very high and his oxygen levels were low. I felt so bad for him (and really kind of pissed at the urgent care doc from the night before).
The good news is that we are home now and he is doing a lot better. Still getting meds at home, still stuffy and needing mommy and daddy to suck out some boogers. Which, as you can only imagine, he HATES! LOL!
I'm glad we are home, but it's been a crazy last week around here.
And I feel like I'm losing my mind again. Everytime I think I finally have things figured out around here, I don't. I feel like I'm losing it. Will I ever feel like things are normal again? Will I ever sleep again? Will I ever have more than just a few minutes to myself? It seriously does not feel like it.
Going from 2 to 3 kids has been VERY hard for me. The kids things are now just overwhelming. And then with everything else that needs to be done ... it's just not all getting done,and if things do get done around here, chances are dh did it and not me. I feel like all I do is nurse and try to sleep if I can. Between those two things are some crazy awake periods where I'm trying to school theoldest, keep the house semi-clean, get some laundry done, get kids to ballet, awana, art, drama, choir, and other classes. I can't wait for summer. No classes, no school, just kicking back and getting outside to play!

I have a ...

friend! A real live friend!
I know this may seem like a silly thing to some people. we all have friends, right? Well, I feel like in my life I basically have a bunch of aquaintances. But since early college, I've never really felt like I had a good friend, the one you cna always call or bare your soul to. My relationships with other people were more on a superficial level. And then along came the internet, and I do have tons of friends on-line and they are woman I love and adore, but they are not here. Most are in other states and as great as e-mail, chat rooms, and message boards are, well, there is a gap there when you can't pick up the phone and say "hey, let's meet for lunch."
But I have that now. I finally have that now.
Someone about my age, with a little boy almost a year old, and is into crafty things like me and is very nice. They've been over here twice now. We went out to lunch once. And next week hopefully the kids and I will be going out to a little party she invited us to. We have talked about getting a sitter this summer nad taking a quilting class together. We are sharing baby things, ideas and all that stuff.
I know it may seem silly, but it's so exciting! I feel like I have someone I can pick up the phone and blab about nothing to or I can call and complain about the sleepless nights and wild children and the messy hosue and the laundry I've been avoiding all week. And it's so exciting.

And today for the first time since early fall I went to one of the mom's club activities. It was nice to reconnect with some old faces and meet some new. So who knows, maybe soon I'll even have two friends hehehee ;-)

I guess the point of all this rambling is that I'm starting to feel normal again. We're not on any kind of schedule yet. I'm still barely getting any sleep. I feel like the jump between two and three has been HUGE for me and I'm still learning how to deal with it all. I still feel very stressed honestly. But at the same time, it's not so new and the learning curve is starting to feel more manageable. Now I just would like to sleep. But babyboy is sick. Very stuffy, a little cough, and just overall miserable, which has translated into very little sleep for him and me. We actually went to urgent care tongiht because dh and I felt his breathing was starting to look a little labored. They checked and his lungs were clear (they even took an x-ray becuase of his shallow breathing) and it all came back okay. It was quite traumatic ... they put him in this thing to get the x-ray. I thought I was going to cry :-( Poor guy. the only down side is that the urgent care facility could not check for RSV. So basically they said watch him tonight. If he remains the same, to his ped tomorrow and if he starts to look worse or the breathing gets more labored, off to the ER we should go. I'm glad his lungs were clear though, but I worry about his breathing and his heart rate was on the higher side too. We'll go to his doc tomorrow and see what she says (provided he doesn't get worse which I'm crossing my fingers he doesn't).

Anyway, there is all my babbling. And its point is that things are starting to feel better around here. I'm starting to feel better. And it's a good place to be. I haven't been in this spot for too long now and I'm glad to finally start getting back to it ....

Just when ....

my day is not going well ... when baby didn't sleep the night before, when my other two dds were being loud and rambunctious and crazy all day, just when I was about to snap, I get a cold hard reality check. I get news that just breaks my heart and puts it all into perspective.
A friend of mine passed away basically suddenly and unexpectedly today.
A little over 3 years ago she was dx'd with leukemia ... she was 8 months pregnant. Basically they induced her and rushed her right away for treatment. Then she needed a donor. Amazingly they found one that was almost a perfect match. She went into remission. It was amazing. It was a long road though - not nearly that simple. To really tell the storyI would need a lot more time. But through it all,s he was amazing - up-beat, happy, full of love for God and so hopeful. I know if it were me, I would have entered some deep depression feeling doomed and constantly asking why me God, why me?
But not her .... not her.
In mid-December she went for a check-up ... still in remission and things were looking good. She was excited she would see her 30th birthday in January.
Well she did, but recently she had a few complication come up. But I guess I didn't realize how serious they were until today. Today when I found out my sweet friend had passed away. In a horrific twist of fate, it is also her oldest dd's birthday. She leaves behind 2 daughters, one son, and a husband.
I can't believe it. And I'm sitting here thinging why her God? Why her? Of all the people in this world, you had to take her? It's moments like this that I wish to hell life were fair. That bad things didn't happen to good people, that someone didn't make it three years, get a clean bill of healthy a few months ago and then have this happen. So suddenly.
I don't understand it. I don't think I ever will understand it. I know, I know ... there's a big picture out there, blah, blah, blah, we can't see it now, blah, blah, blah, it doesn't make sense now, but someday ti will, blah blah blah ....
I don't buy it right now. I just don't buy it. This sucks. I'm so sad and mad and just full of sadness and anger I just might burst.
But I know I can't. She was better than that and so I must try to be better than that. So I will try to just pray for her family and for her precious little babies.
I will try to not let the sadness out and let the anger go and to remember her sweet smile and her cute southern accent and to keep her spirit alive.

Momma and baby ... my girls never really slept on my like this, so when babyboy fell asleep like that today I just felt like I was in heaven!