All in a Day's Play

Saturday we drove down to Kemah to see Uncle Will's new apartment. I think Madison and Chase's favorite part was the park right outside their front door. What do you think?

Old McChase went to the farm... E-I-E-I-O

I work with a teacher that has twin daughters that raise show pigs and she offered to let us bring Chase and Cade (his bestbud) by to see the week and a half old piglets. All I can say is 4H is definitely in our future! The babies were absolutely adorable, although a tad stinky, and just hilarious to watch. Chase was intrigued with the small ones, but wasn't quite sure what to think of the mamas that had to weigh in at 400 pounds easy! I didn't know it but the piglets are born with very sharp pointy teeth that are quickly cut off after birth. If you put your finger in the pen they will suck on it and although it took us a bit to get Chase to do it, he thought it was the funniest thing.

They had lambs there too (his daddy's former 4H love) and several barn cats. However, not to our surprise Chase's favorite was Shadow.... the resident dog! I'm so glad we took him down the farm so he could play with the dog, definitely worth the trip!

Third times a charm....

Today will be the official day 1 of IVF #3. I will start BCPs on Saturday and it looks like we will start daily shots around the end of October. Retrieval/transfer somewhere in the 2nd week of November and a positive pregnancy test just after Thanksgiving. Deep breaths, deep breaths.

Quotable Quotes 2

The mind is like a parachute, it works best when opened. - Unknown

FIRE, FIRE! Wet's go!

I'm always amazed by how smart my Doodlebug is. I find myself saying, "he's too little to know that or to do that" and then he immediately proves me wrong. The things he can learn are just unbelievable. He truly is a sponge soaking it all up! I'm also always amazed by just how wonderful his Daddy is with him.

Unknown to me, Jeff had decided that Chase needed to learn about fires and what to do if he were ever caught in one. I know that children need to know this and I know that families should have an escape plan, but I had yet to ever put this into motion at our house.

When I arrived home the other evening it was time for a demonstration. Jeff pushed the test button on the alarm w/o Chase knowing and Chase's eyes got huge. He looked up and screamed, "Fire, Fire, Come on Mommy we go outside now!" He grabbed our hands and we headed out the door. He then told us, "it's OK" once we got outside. Now how smart is that? *sigh* I swear he is just the smartest little guy in the whole world!!! I thought he'd forget, but he again showed us what to do when Duchess was with us this weekend and if you ask him what to do if there's a fire, he'll tell you. In all seriousness, I really do think I have to two best guys in the world.... I'm a lucky girl!

Tumble Time

Sometimes we just need a little release of all that energy at the end of the day. By "we," I mean Chase. Good Lord that boy has energy. If I had half of it, I'd be a size zero! We do the water babies (although we are skipping this session) and we've done the music class, so now we have started tumbling. We figured Chase is now old enough and what better way to get exercise (and by exercise, I really mean wear him out)! Plus he REALLY likes to run around and it's sooooo much funner to do it there at the bargain price of $55/month as opposed to at home where it's free! Here is a typical tumble class w/pictures for your enjoyment.

First we stretch:

Then we do our obstacle course, that includes a climb over:

A balance beam (with a little help):

A crawl through:

Then the awesome sponge pit:

Next it's trampoline time! How cool are these? They are in-ground and totally padded:

And last, I nice drink of water (or a face full of water and then a drink):

We think tumbling rocks!

Quotable Quotes

Every once in a while you come across a quote that's actually worth quoting. Today I found one that made a lot of sense right now:

Maybe all we can hope to do is end up with the right regrets. - Arthur Miller

Perhaps I should take that to heart.

He said I'd know....

Our RE told me that I'd know when I was ready to cycle again. Last time I was excited and eager. I was ready for the shots, ready for the ultrasounds, ready for it all. I figured when the time was right, I'd feel that way again. Yet here we are, just two weeks away from starting birth control pills for IVF #3 and I feel none of that. In fact, I feel scared and sick when I think about it. *sigh* I don't know what it means. Does it mean that I'm not ready? Does it mean that I want to just call it quits? Please God, help me through this because my time is running out fast. I don't know what to do. :o(

Also, my mom has a big job interview in the morning that we would all really, really love for her to get an offer on. So if you are the praying type, please send them her way! TIA

I'm thinking of you today...

Today is International Disturbed People's Day !

Please send an encouraging message to a disturbed friend... just as I've done.

I don't care if you lick windows,

take the special bus

or occasionally wet yourself...

You hang in there Sunshine,

you're special!

Diggin' for Dinos - Don't Mess With Momma

This past weekend we decided to head on down to the mall and meet some friends that we hadn't seen in a while. Usually our big event of the day is riding the carousal, but at the time the Museum of Natural Science currently has a dinosaur digging area set up and we thought it would be fun to try out (not to mention free for my little one, so how do you beat that?!?!).

There are two versions to our dig. The short version (happy Mommy) and the long version (very NOT happy Mommy). Here is the short:

Chase loved playing in the dig pit! Here are some pics of the cutest anthropologist ever!




Long Version:

All started well and the young lady told us the rules as to what was and wasn't acceptable. Pretty common knowledge for most of us, but hey, they pay her to talk so we listened. Chase quickly decided that he didn't like the *sand* (rubber and carpet fibers) on his feet and preferred to dig with his crocs on and was happily playing. My friend and I stood close by while her two older kids played in another pit to keep an eye on Chase. He would play for a few minutes and then sit to empty his shoes, it was quite entertaining. About 10 min. into playtime an older lady, that I swear was on 'roids of some sort, began buzzing in and out of the children and grabbing the buckets and shovels the minute they set them down and putting them up. Before I knew it she was stooped over my Little Doodlebug trying to make him take his shoes off because then he wouldn't have to empty them. As I explained to her he did not want his shoes off, she gave me the *shoosh* finger and continued to tug on his little crocs until he started to cry. She then grabbed his bucket and shovel and put it up, which just upset him even more, strike #1. I grabbed a bucket and shovel and consoled my little one and he was off to play again. I swear not two minutes later she was back over him complaining that we were not watching him and that he was dumping stuff on the ground. WTF? He's two, he's in a dig pit, and he's playing. It's gonna get on the ground. Not to mention there were two of us standing next to him and his father was right on the other side of the fence. Strike #2 lady. 10 seconds later I look down and she has grabbed Chase's hand and is brushing a piece of *dirt/rubber* out of it while saying, "no, no, no, that stays in here." I'm pretty sure at this point I had steam coming out of my ears. Strike #3 honey, you're out!

I grabbed Doodlebug, explained VERY loudly that we had to leave because Mommy's patience had just ran out and headed straight to the manager. If I had paid to get in, I guarantee I'd have gotten a refund! The manager was very apologetic and said that whenever they were busy that "V" got stressed. Well then WTH is she doing around kids?!?!? Ugh! Needless to say we had thought about having our first grade trip at the museum, definitely won't happen now. The manager did go talk to her, but I'm still fuming over it. I have a right, don't I? **edited to add that I decided to email the next up in line, I'm still steaming and it's been three days!**

30 months today or 2 1/2 years!

I can't believe it, but my baby is 2 1/2 years old today! In fact, he's 2 1/2 years old at exactly 10:49 p.m. *sigh* Surely time hasn't gone this fast, right??? Because if it has then that would mean that in 15 1/2 years my baby will be 18 and ready to go off to college and I just can't have that. 15 1/2 years will come WAY TOO soon! Why is that before he was born it felt like we had waited a lifetime for him and now that he is ours I know that a lifetime could never last long enough?!?!

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E (a.k.a. A Shameless Mommy Brag!)

I think I heard someone saying that it had been too long since I shared pictures of Chase. OK, maybe I didn't really *hear* that, but I'm sure that lots of you were thinking it!

With the upcoming arrival of Halloween 2007 Chase and I have been having deep conversations on what he would like to be for Halloween. As a recap of Halloween past we have:

Halloween 2005 (skunk and Larry the Cable Baby, hey - it was hard to choose!)


and

Halloween 2006 (we orignally purchased an awesome Tom Arma Monkey costume, but Chase freaked when I put it on him so we decided to go as his future profession: a doctor)

This year I figured Chase was old enough that he could give me some hints as to what he wanted to be. If you know Chase, you know that he LOVES Mickey Mouse. Actually the word LOVE does not even do it justice. If he could get rid of me and have Mickey as his Mommy, he'd be tempted. So I was not the least bit surprised when he gleefully exclaimed that he wanted to be Mickey! I found an adorable Mickey Costume on ebay (boy those things are pricey for something you are going to wear for an hour) and purchased it, figuring that he'd take one look at what he was supposed wear on his head and run screaming. Not to mention how I figured he'd react to the gloves.

Needless to say the costume was waiting in the mail when Daddy and Chase got home and I found the cutest little mouse smiling at me when I walked in the door. Now how freaking adorable is this?!?!?

I'm amazed he's wearing it and absolutely thrilled. I am going to get black pants and a black long-sleeve onsie and then it will be complete. I think I'll have to get the bigger size up though because somehow I managed to get a tall/thin kid (how did that happen) and the stride is almost too short. We had to fight to get him to take it off and I have a feeling that we are going to get lots and lots of wear out of this one! Wonder if we'll be Mickey Mouse again next year!

Oh and just for kicks, here's our bulldog Molly after Chase goes to bed at night! I think this picture is hilarious and says "oh so much" about our wild one!

"Oh My Aching Head!"

Apparently relaxing doesn't make babies and neither does sex...

Acupuncture is what makes babies.

Today I had my first acupuncture appointment. Since I've had my share of pokes in the past I wasn't afraid of the needles, just a little nervous because it was a new place and something that was unknown to me. As I figured it wasn't bad at all and I only have two spots that are the tiniest bit sore. Of course Master Thei (pronounced Ty) is sure that given a few months he can get us pg w/o IVF. I had been told he would say this by my friend Lisa that referred us there. The assistant saw her name on my referral and happily told me that she was the one pg with twins now, right? I smiled and said yes, twin boys. I just didn't have the heart to tell him that she is pg with twins via her last IVF. I figured I'd just give him that one.

Anyway, it's always funny to me when people say things like relax and you'll get pg or now that you've had a baby you'll get pg. Or as in today's case where Master Thei feels like he can readjust my system and get my womb ready for a healthy baby and healthy mommy (his words). I find this hilarious because we are dealing with male factor meaning that there's a little more to it than that. Oh well, we agreed that I would go once a week and that it would take several cycles, but that we'd stick to until I got pg. Again I didn't have the heart to tell him that we would still be doing IVF in October even though he was positive we'd be fine. I guess when it works (thinking positive) I'll just let him have that one too.