The Infamous Purple Blanket- Where did it go now??

Every night when Courtney goes to bed, she always has to have her purple blanket with her. Aunt Melissa gave her this blanket when she was born and it is her special blanket.

Yesterday (Saturday), we took Megan to dance and then went to the airport to pick Matt up. She somehow snuck the blanket into the car. She likes to take it in the car and then cover up with it because she is always cold from the air conditioner. I don't care that she does this, I just tell her the blanket needs to stay in the car.

After we picked up Matt, we stopped at Megan's school to watch her go across the monkey bars. She's been working on this at school lately and wanted to show us her progress. I remember seeing the purple blanket in the car while we were at Aldrich and I remember telling her to leave it in the car when she wanted to get out to play.

We got home and all was fine until bedtime. "Mom, where is my purple blanket?" I told her I didn't know, but that doesn't work, you have to look for it. So, Matt and I searched and searched. We looked everywhere in the house and in the car. I knew I saw it at the school, but it wasn't in the house anywhere.

We told her we would keep looking for it and for her to go to bed. Luckily, she took this ok and went to bed. Megan borrowed her a blanket to snuggle with last night. (It was sweet that she was curled up with Megan's blanket- they really do love each other. :)

Anyway, we all woke up this morning and since we were late for church and didn't have time for breakfast, Matt told the girls to just grab a granola bar out of the snack drawer. Courtney opens the drawer and says, "I found my blanket!!"

Silly girl had put her blanket in the snack drawer last night! I guess that was one place we didn't look!!

Need to change

I looked at my calendar today and saw that I have a 7 year old checkup scheduled for Megan at 3 pm on Wednesday.

I am supposed to be at the endocronologist at 2 pm.

Hmmm, I need to switch an appointment, can't be in opposite sides of the town within an hour of each other!

By the way, Matt got home safe and sound this afternoon. We're glad he's home! (Just in time to watch Missouri get beat by Nebraska!!!)

Update

I have an appointment next Wednesday to see an endocronologist, it's the same one my dad sees here in Omaha!

My family dr. called me back yesterday and said the thyroid dr. doesn't want to put me on anything at this time becuase I am breastfeeding, but he still wants to see me. He also said this could be caused by having a baby and might go away in a few months! After doing my own research online, this is very common.

As I sit here now, I am shaky. Glad to know it's not my blood sugar! But I will have to live with it for awhile. I'm glad the symptoms aren't too noticable and I can still take care of children/ myself with this problem.

It's my thyroid??

I went to the dr. yesterday, a bunch of things have been bothering me, so I went and got them all checked out.

1. I had a sore throat for awhile, but since I'm on antibiotics for my tooth abcess, that has gone away. In the meantime, I asked the dr. to check it out and he did and it was fine. He felt my thyroid andhe said everything was fine. He decided to check my thryoid with a blood test because I don't think it's ever been checked.

2. My blood sugar has been way low lately. I always feel weak and shaky, he mentioned to just eat some more since I'm nursing. Easy enough!

3. I also had him check my gall bladder. I've gotten really bad stomach aches lately when I eat high-fatty food. He felt it and it seemed fine, but he said I could go ahead and get it checked anyway (ultrasound, nuclear radiology test). I'm still debating what to do (but I need to do it this year if I do anything!)

In the end, the nurse came in and took a big vile of blood. He was going to check my thyroid, blood sugar, and my liver and kidney function because my back has been hurting.

Today he called with the results. Blood sugar, liver, kidney function all fine. Thyroid is not. He said my numbers were way high- I have hyper-thyroidism or Grave's Disease. And since I am breastfeeding, he cannot put me on the medicine that he usually would. He was calling an endocronoloigst (the same one my dad sees) and seek his advice.

I'm so glad he checked it, it has the same symptoms as low blood sugar, I would've never guessed! That would explain why I'm shaky, losing weight, palpitations, and can't sleep well at night.

We'll see what happens next!

Where is the hairspray?

I went into my bathroom to get the hairspray today and it wasn't where I thought it would be. I put a bun in Megan's hair and wanted to spray it.

Then I remembered, it's in the laundry room! I use the hairspray more on ink stains on clothes than I actually do on hair!

I want to go too!

Matt left today for a 3 day Microsoft conference (vacation?) in Seattle, Washington.

I am going to be a single mom for 3 days, but really, it's only 3 days.
Sometimes husbands are gone for months at a time, I consider myself lucky.

I can survive 3 days with my 3 children. Heck, one child is in school all day, so really 2/3 of my children all day, 3 children from 4 til bedtime. Not so bad.

It really comes down to Christian, if he would do me a GREAT favor and sleep through the night, I would be extremely happy.

for example, last night, I came back to bed after trying to get Christian back to sleep at 11:30 and Matt said, "What's going on?" and I told him what was going on, in a not so nice tone of voice. "You're son won't go back to sleep!" So in the end, we let him cry it out and it only took 20 minutes, now if only he would stop getting up at 4:30 too!

Matt will be back Saturday afternoon, just in time for Halloween. I can do it!

Clothes, Clothes Everywhere!

My goal for the day: Pick up clothes.

Thanks to my new method of putting clothes away at night, I now have piles of clothes all over...and it's beginning to drive me nuts!

My master closet, Megan and Courtney's room, and Christian's room.

You know you need to put them away when Megan asked me where her tights were and I said, "Look in the pile of clothes on your floor." Of course, there are dirty clothes all over their floor too!

I also have piles of clothes in my bedroom (kids clothes that need to be put away for the winter and put in the attic) and piles of clothes on my bathroom floor. (Thanks Matt!)

Really, who needs dressers or a closet in my house??

I should add that this is only clean clothes....dirty clothes are a whole other issue!!!

Christian discovered...

his toes!!

Just got back from...

"Go Dog Go!"

This is one of Courtney's favorite books and when I saw it was the Rose Theatre this year, I bought a membership.

Today we made the trip downtown and saw it.

Matt and I weren't quite sure what to expect because there is no real plot line to the book, but the actors did a great job. It wasn't the best play we have ever seen, but it wasn't the worse.

Along the way, the actors told the audience which page they were on, so the kids could follow along. Of course, Courtney had her book along and followed along with everybody else!

The play went page by page and they had props for about everything. They even had extra skits to go along with some pages, skits that aren't included in the book. It was interesting how they made the book come alive on stage!

Next up: Peter Pan!

Dragging this morning...

I am not moving very fast this morning.

Two late nights + hour up with Christian last night + him waking up an hour early this morning=
one tired mommy

Hopefully I'll snap out of this soon and get my day started. :)

Dentist today

Megan, Courtney, and I had our 6 month checkup at the dentist today.

Everybody had great reports, except for me. :(

Two cavities (where two teeth come together) and I need a root canal.

A root canal on my tooth that I just got a crown on 6 months ago.

This tooth has been sensitive to cold and hard to chew on that side since I had Christian and I have been to the dentist twice trying to figure it out. The answer came today.

They took x-rays and at the way bottom of my root, there is an abcess. nice.
That will be another $250, thank you very much.

If only I wouldn't have cracked my tooth on toast way back in February, I wouldn't be going through all this! They said it was bound to crack anyway, no matter what I ate because I had a big filling in it.

So, I get to take antibiotics for 10 days and then have a root canal. And two fillings.

Sounds like fun to me....

Moving Up...again

Today I pulled out 12 month clothes. My baby is 4 months old and is almost wearing 12 months. This is mostly for onesies and sleepers, we are still in 6 month pants. I have a feeling he is always going to be a size ahead for shirts and sleepers. (Can't buy any outfits!)

I feed bad, I have four 3-6 month pants outfits that he never wore. One was a gift and the other three I bought, at least I got them on clearance and can always regift them or sell them at consignment sales down the line.

I did find some cute 12 month clothes that I had set aside for the winter- cute overalls and shirts. I bought some white onesies the other day, so we are set on those (a mainstay in my baby's wardrobe!). We are good on sleepers too, we may just need some socks. Poor boy, his socks are already too small!

I just wonder how big this little boy is going to be in 18 years!

Note to self

Do not drink orange juice or anything that has a lot of sugar in it in the morning.

I've been having trouble with low blood sugar in the mornings and this is only making it worse.

It's getting cleaned!

Tonight at supper, Megan looked at Courtney and said, "Let's clean the playroom tonight." I think Megan wants to get back in there more than Courtney.

At the moment I hear, "Clean up, Clean up, Everybody Clean up!" They are both in there cleaning and it's almost done! They might get to play in there again!

I think it's been closed for over a week. I wondered how long it would take!

The apple orchard!

After church today, we headed down to Nebraska City to the apple orchards. We ended up at Arbor Farms and had a great time! We went on a nature hike and played in the kids section. Our girls were eager to learn about trees. Megan kept saying, "I love nature!" and I think she does.

They both got little trees with our admission, so we had to plant those when we got home.

Hopefully I will post some pictures soon!

Improvement!

I am loving Christian's new schedule! He eats every three hours, takes a nap between each feeding, and is a much happier boy! We've only cried about twice this last week due to being tired. Plus, we have started going to bed at 7:30 and getting up at 7-7:30, with getting up once in the middle of the night to eat. MUCH BETTER!!!!

Today we are off to church and then Nebraska City to pick some apples! Hope the weather stays nice for us!!

Fall Break!

Megan has had the last three days off of school, it's been nice having her home, but it's also hard to adjust to three kids again.

Last Tuesday, we had parent-teacher conferences for Megan. I left Christian for the first time at home with Chad and Kelsey. I had him fed and changed and he was good for about 3 hours. He did great! When I got home, he was a happy baby! We also got a very good report about Megan!

Wednesday morning (Megan's first day off), I had Christian's 4 month appointment at 11 am. It took us about that long to get out of bed and get ready, of course, I slept in! We made it and Christian checked out great. He weighed 16 lbs, 12 oz (80%) and he was 26 3/4 inches long (95%). He is right on schedule for development. Our doctor talked to us about solid food, but I'm going to wait until 6 months.

We got home around 12 and by 2, I was pulling my hair out from the fighting between the two girls! I said, "That's it, get your shoes on, we're going to the park!" They didn't want to walk to our neighborhood park, they wanted to go to the"spiderweb park" and it's not so far away. We got in the car and off we went. We played at the park for about 2 hours! Megan had made some friends and it was a beautiful day out, so we just stayed for awhile!

Thursday was another gorgeous day! We stayed home in the morning and then went downtown to have lunch with Matt. We picked up Matt at work and then headed down to Old Chicago. We needed quarters for the parking meters and Matt asked if I had any, I said no, but then from the backseat I heard, "Mom, I have quarters!" Courtney was eager to share hers. We had lunch and then headed back to west Omaha. At 2, we met some friends and played at another great park for another 2 hours! It was beautiful out again. We probably would've played longer, but everybody had to go potty!

Today is Friday and I had MOPS this morning. Since Megan was off of school and the church had no place for her while I attended MOPS, I called grandma Lu and she came and watched the older two girls while I took Christian to MOPS. They had a great time together while I was gone.

Matt decided to take the afternoon off and since it was in the 70's again, I did not want to stay indoors! I suggested we go to the zoo, so we did! Grandma Lu came with us and we were there for about 4 hours. We all had a good time!

Tonight we're home and we're ready for another weekend! We're anxious to watch the NE vs. Texas game tomorrow- Go Big Red!!!

Sunday Afternoon at Grandma's!

I took the kids on Sunday and went back to Scribner. My grandma had been in the hospital, so I wanted to visit her for awhile. After we were done there, we headed over to my parents' house to play with Megan and Courtney's cousins. My mom was watching Abby and Lizzie for the day and the girls always have great fun together!


We took Megan and Courtney's bikes out there and they could not wait to ride them with their cousins in grandma's garage!

(Notice Lizzie is riding the tractor and the dog is laying in the middle of the patio- the girls just rode around him!)

Christian hanging out in grandma's stoller as the girls rode bikes!



We thought it would be fun to put Christian on the tractor! He looks pretty good!



All the cousins, minus Rowan, by the tractor
Lizzie, Abby, Christian, Megan, and Courtney.



It's always fun to get together and play!

Closed Until Further Notice...or until little girls decide to clean the playroom.

We have a new rule at the Ruwe house:

You cannot play in the playroom until it is clean.

This NEVER happens..

Ok, so Christian is asleep in his swing and I just peeked in on Courtney and she is asleep in her bed! I figured she was tired because she was giving me some trouble this morning.

What?? Both kids sleeping, what do I do??

Am I lazy?

Ok, so I've noticed I've started doing something not so good around here.

I've becoming a bit lazy when it comes to putting laundry away at night. During the day, I carry all the clean clothes upstairs in laundry baskets and then I sort them on my bed. I usually get interruped, so I never put them away in the afternoon and then they sit there until bedtime. At bedtime, I need to put them away because I want to go to bed. :)

When I put clothes away at night, I don't put them in the dresser drawers, I just take the pile of clothes and set it on the floor in front of the dresser.

For the clothes that need to be hung up in our master closet, I just make a pile on the floor.

If Christian is in bed, I just pile his clothes up outside his door.

I always tell myself, "I will put them away later." Eventually I do....

Am I lazy or what?

Sleep Achieved! New Schedule!

Things went much better last night.

I got Christian to bed and I didn't see him until 2:22, I fed him and put him back in his swing. Amazingly, he didn't get up again! And I got a good night's sleep!

When I woke up this morning, Megan was lying beside me in bed, I didn't even hear her come in! I hadn't heard anything from Christian yet, so I just peeked into his room. He was in his swing, wide awake and just looking around. He wasn't crying and begging for me! This is a first! We got him up, changed him, and got Megan ready for school.

I have been trying really hard the last 2-3 days to put this boy on a schedule. Until now, I've been feeding him on demand and he was always tired, hungry, etc. He wasn't very happy.

Now, I'm going to feed him in one sitting, not split feedings anymore. It takes about 20 minutes, then he can be awake awhile, and then he can take a nap. Before he was having a hard time getting to sleep and it just wasn't working well for him (or for me!).

I think putting him on a schedule has been working great! We got out this morning and we didn't need to stop to eat. He didn't eat for 3 1/2 hours, but he was the happiest boy all morning! After he ate at lunch time, he played for almost 1 1/2 hours in his bouncy seat/ walker and smiled and laughed the entire time. Then he got a little restless, so I gave him his pacifier and rocked him a little and out he went! Ahhh, it's working!

Unforunately, I told Megan I would walk to school today again to get her, which means I will probably need to wake him up. But he should be able to sleep for about an hour until I disturb him.

Let's see if happy boy continues! It would sure make life easier and maybe he'll sleep through the night. :)

Maybe some sleep tonight...

Last night was a disaster here at the Ruwe house.

I got Christian down at 9, I went to bed at 10.

11:30 Christian was awake, so I fed him.

1:15 Christian was awake, so I fed him again....I thought, mabye we'll make it til 7?

I was wrong!!

4:30 I saw him again and fed him, I got back to bed at 5. (never really got back to sleep because Matt got up at 5:30)

6:00 awake again!! fed him yet again, but this time he was wide awake. He was smiling at Matt and thought it was time to get up! Wrong!!

Matt left about 6:45 and I got him back to sleep, again by about 7:15.

By this time, there is no point in trying to go back to sleep. Megan came into my room at 7:30, it was time to get her ready for school.

Honestly, I wasn't too tired today, considering I probably didn't get more than 3 hours of sleep last night.

He has a cold, so I think that is part of it, but really, give me a break here!

I took him to the doctor today to make sure he didn't have an ear infection or bronchitis and he doesn't have either, just a good old-fashioned cold. He's been sleeping in his swing at night with a vaprorizer, hopefully it will help tonight.

If anyone is curious, he weighs 16.5 lbs.!!

Pet Peeve of Mine

Since it was so nice out today, I decided that we were going to walk over to school to pick up Megan. Courtney could ride her bike and Christian could hang out in the stroller while I pushed him. We could play on the playground a little bit and then we could all walk home. It sounded like a great plan.

I knew somewhere in there though, I would need to feed Christian. I really didn't worry about it though, I feed this kid about anywhere these days. I just cover up (and try to find a corner where I can hide.)

We made it over there in one piece and got Megan. She was excited that we came and got her and that we were going to walk home. I let the girls play for awhile, we had our snack that I brought, and then I decided that we all should use the bathroom before the mile walk home.

I took all three kids into the school and went into the office. There were three ladies standing at the desk (the secretary was already gone, so I don't really know who these three ladies were). I asked them if it would be ok if I used the restroom before we headed home. They said sure, so I took the girls in. (The restroom is in the health office, which is right off of the office.)

Everybody used the facilities and then Christian started fussing, I figured it was time to eat and the health office would be the best place to feed him, so I stuck my head out and asked the three ladies again if they minded if I sat in the health office and fed him. They all looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. Don't you hear my screaming baby??

All I wanted was,"Sure, go ahead." But no, one lady said to me, "Well, if that would get your baby quiet, then go ahead." Excuse me?? Have these ladies never had kids? I couldn't believe it. They then proceeded to tell me to make sure I shut the door because there are other staff members around.

Yes, I know school was out and the secretary was gone and I probably shouldn't have been in the school in the first place, but seriously!

I went back into the health office with my screaming baby and tried to feed him, but he wanted nothing to do with eating. Out of frustration from the whole thing, I got up (he screamed even louder) and left. Luckily, all of the women were gone.

Poor Christian screamed all the way out the school, past the playground, and halfway home on the trail. We all stopped after we got under Dodge Street to see if he would eat and again, he just turned the other way. We kept going and he kept screaming. Even other people on the trail were making comments, I know he's screaming! I can hear him too!

Eventually after about 20-30 minutes of crying, he gave up and fell asleep on my shoulder. I put him in the stroller and we headed home. AHHHH!! My nerves were fried when we got home. I was making Megan push the stroller when I had Christian and she was complaining about it and Courtney wasn't listening very good as we were coming up the street to our house either, our little adventure wasn't turning out so well!

When we got home, I picked Christian up very carefully and put him in his swing. He was in there a little bit before he got upset, but when I tried to feed him, he ate and calmed down.

Anyway, my pet peeve in all of this is those people who can clearly see a crying baby and say no when you ask them to use thier place to nurse. This happened to me at Penney's once too and it really irritates me!!!

lost count

I lost count of how many times I got up with Christian last night.

Amazingly, I'm not that tired this morning. I'm sure it will hit me about 5 pm tonight.

2nd tooth

I checked out Christian's mouth today and his 2nd tooth popped through!

I wonder when those top teeth will start coming through.

Will he have all 20 by the time he is a year like Megan did?

Everybody keeps asking me, "Are you nursing?" My answer is "yes" and I'm not going to stop just because my baby got his teeth! If he bites, I will probably jump and scare him and he probably won't do it again! (This is what happened to my girls!)

It's not fair.

Mr. Christian, Just because you get to nap the day away doesn't mean I can too. You have had me up 2-3 times during the last two nights and I am tired!!! Please, can we sleep through the night again. You did great earlier this week and now you're not doing so good again. :( Just tell me why you keep waking up and I will take care of it. I promise. Sincerely, Your very tired mother.