What’s going to happen next. does the thought scare you or excite you? I am an “excite me” type of person. Life is one big grand adventure, right? So, what’s the point in knowing what’s around the next riverbend? Just go with the flow man!

I do love when exciting opportunities loom on the horizon. i like to dream and analyze and make lists about what i will do if option a.) or b.) comes up first. And of course I like to pre-spend all the money I will make. (I know ben just loves this about me!)

I am very anxious to find a routine/schedule that works for us. My sister and I are contemplating opening a photography business. Now I know they are a dime a dozen, but I think we really could have a lot of fun trying to make ours work. Here in our area there are a BUNCH of hoity toity photogs who charge an arm and three legs for the privilege of having your picture taken by them…but obviously, most of their target audience is not going to be able to afford them. So I am hoping we can find a good niche. No idea how or if it will all work out, but it should be fun to brainstorm at least!

Kaylen’s reflux seems to be under MUCH better control. We ended up in the ER last Thursday nite for a few hours.I had noticed all that day that she seemed to be getting pretty congested. I chalked it up to allergies (since all the rest of us nerdy Atkinsons suffer from horrible allergies, why should she be exempt?). By that nite it was getting harder for her to breathe, and forget trying to nurse. she just couldn’t make it work between eating, sucking, breathing – oy. but I am trying one last time to get her to eat so she can go to bed. Well very rapidly her eyes start puffing up, are bright red, and her nose is all red and swollen also. She sounds very raspy and is obviously having a hard time breathing well. It wasn’t like she WASn’T breathing, you could just tell it was a lot of effort for her. So i called the ped to see if I could put her on my nebulizer or give her a little benadryl or something to help out the what I assumed were allergies. Dr. On-Call says – “no, babies don’t have allergies till they’re a year. Better take her in and have her looked at”. So i trek down to the closes ER where, by the way, they have THE PARKING GARAGE SHUT DOWN. Where the FORK is one supposed to park??? I make my own spot and run in cause by now of course I have worked myself up thinking she isn’t breathing for some god-awful reason. GEt to the ER desk and the nurse is like, ok your baby looks fine. I am like – FEEL HER – you can feel her chest rattling! And you know, since nobody wants a lawsuit for killing a  2 month old, they take her right back. (Excellently fast service when you walk in a with a baby in respiratory distress by the way! Broken ankle in a middle age man? Back of the line please!!!)

anyways – the young punk doctor fresh out of residency checks her over and decides to “recreate” the situation that got her bad. Of course by now the swelling has all gone down and her breathing is much better. So they hook her up to a few monitors and have me feed her again. Same thing starts happening, I feel her start to reflux and monitors start going crazy. But we got our answer. She was basically refluxing (throwing up), and since her mouth was occupied, and her nose was so congested, it had nowhere to come out but her eyes. Yes dear readers, my child was throwing up out her eyeballs, causing an obvious irritating reaction. Gross.

Best part of this is Doogie Howser MD’s advice:

Doogie: Well mom, when she is eating and you start to feel her choke, you have to get her off the breast right away.

Me: Did you have to go to medical school to learn that awesome advice or is it just sheer God-given talent?

Doogie: (not quite sure if i am kidding or not) – laughs nervously

Me: So that’s seriously all you can tell me to help her?

UGH!!! And for this I am going to end up paying some RECOCKULOUS amount of money. I wanted to scream – No Poop Pollock! I have successfully nursed two other children – I think I know a little something about how to take a choking baby off the breast! Unlike him, who, for obvious physical reasons, has not ever nursed an infant a day in his life. Where do they find these people I ask you?

So anyways – after that excitement she slept pretty good and has spent most of the weekend trying to get back on a good schedule, but overall is doing very well. I am a little more mindful of feeling her start to reflux which is helping some, but…the rest I just gotta leave in God’s hands I guess. I know He has a reason for all this craziness we are going through. Birth control for one…learning patience and what love REALLY means would be another…

Have i mentioned how much I love our church? We found a great small group this past week that even Ben likes. Which is a HUGE deal. I hope we are able to grow closer to some of the people in it through this time. this church is really and truly such a place where God is evident and is working. I know He has great things in store for this church, and I want to know how to be more of a part of it.

Well the great non-sleeping one is up from her 20 minute catnap and i have housework up to my eyeballs to get done.

Hopefully when my thoughts are a little more organized I can come back and post more. right now everything is scattered in about a hundred different directions!

Peace out. yo gabba gabba.

finally catching a little break around here. Kaylen has actually taken REAL NAPS the last two days. i am starting to feel kind of normal again. I must do something about this little weight issue of mine. I can no longer use the pregnancy excuse. although. i can use the crappy breastfeeding excuse. I am hopeful though that since i have recently ceased to become the local 7-11 for my baby, that maybe my body will stop stockpiling the calories and let some of the weight go. (have i mentioned that I can rationalize or explain away almost anything?)

So – that’s my biggest news. I need to be better about blogging daily. There really is so much random crap that floats through my mind on a daily basis -i would love to have a place to let it all out, capture it, leave it for posterity. But alas – I get easily sidetracked. what else is new?

some pictures. I have to get more recent ones. These are about a week and a half old I think.

 Kaylen sitting in her bumbo one warm Sunday evening. I love this little onesie on her - not sure if its the color or what…It matches pretty nicely with her bumbo though, no?

A nice one of the girls – all dolled up for Sunday morning. Amazing to me that I have THREE baby girls now. all so totally different, yet they all came from me. I need to stop and recognize the amazingness of them more often. some days just go by in such a fast whirlwind and the name of the game is just SURVIVAL. (oh – side note – Survivor China starts in TWO DAYS!!! WOOT!)

 Umm lets see what other cute shots have I gotten recently…

I have no idea if she was just squealing in joy here or yawning or starting to get fussy – but I loved the way the light turned out on this one. This towel she is leaning on is a beautiful gift from a beautiful friend of mine, Laura. She stitched Kaylen’s name into the hood of this towel – it will be a treasured gift for many years to come. I wish I could figure out how to lighten her eyes in this pic – they just turn devilish when i try to convert to b/w.   Note to self: research eye lighten actions for PS in all my spare time…

the waning days of summer, and playing outside on the sidewalk…We’re supposed to tell Karissa “toes out!” when we see her sitting like this. Its supposedly a holdover from her back issues with the spina bifida when she was a baby – and is horrible for their knees, stomach, and of course back. But you know what? its just so uniquely her. So little girly of her to sit like this. i don’t want to make that go away. I want to always remember her like this – plopped on the sidewalk, playing with chalk and her kitties, making up songs – just enjoying being a kid in summertime.

And that pretty much sums up today’s post. More random thoughts to come soon!

Holy Lord i did not think it was possible to be ANY more tired than i was. It has been taken to a whole new level now though. I actualy have developed an eye twitch due to lack of sleep. Last nite she i swear to you was awake ALLLL friggggggginnnnn nite longggggg….

Tonite – for added fun – i get to wake the munchkins BACK up at 11 to drive down to the ghetto of chi-town to pick my goddaughter up from the airport. She is staying with us for two weeks. Now if she manages to ever be awake at all during her trip, i might get some cool free babysitting out of this!! But needless to say, tonite and the ensuing day tomorrow will not be much fun. Even less fun if this friggin sinus headache doesn’t ever leave. How many cups of caffeine does it take to get rid of a sinus headache? we’ll see. of course throw in the overdose on alka-seltzer sinus and the odd zyrtec here and there and it should be in just a shade under 12 hours.

Not much else going on today. I am so sporadic with these posts.

I will say – good laugh for the day last week – checking blog stats seeing that someone came here from searching “how to stay calm while pooping”. I laughed SO hard at that.

a.) because WHO needs to google that? you just do it, its a bodily function, the end!

b.) because they got taken to my labor story. HOpe they found what they were looking for!

c.) just cause that is hilarious period!

Ugggghhhhh – this headache is killing me. I need to go make more coffee and get kealey grace ready for the bus. Thinking i may plunk the change down for a new mobile for kaylen too today. I had this tiny love symphony one for kealey (who managed to destroy it before she was 6 months old by grabbing it and holding it in place cause the clicking sound was funnier to her than the music), but up to that point, it just mesmerized her. i need something to entertain kaylen when she isn’t in my arms, which feels like its 24-7. 

Crap she’s up again. And i haven’t properly medicated myself.

In other news – we did start her on a new reflux med which for three blessed nites seemed to work. She’s always a horrible sleeper on the nites ben is out of town…WHHHHYYYYYYYYY? the baby gods hate me.

So anyways – i will update more later on how things are going with the new meds and what is working and what isn’t…but for now i gotta go mix up some alka-seltzer to drown my sorrows in.

peace out homeslices.