Why must they grow up?

Remember those giant blow pops?......yeah.....

The good with the bad....

So, it has been an eventful week. Please don't judge me by the story I'm about to tell you....I got pulled over the other night..with my four year old in the car. If you know Charlestown, then you know that the speed flucuates driving through town. It was late at night and Lauren and I were on the way home from a friend's house. I had just reached the part of town where the speed limit drops and started to slow down. No sooner had I hit the brakes than the lovely blue and red lights filled our car. My sweet four year old starts yelling and screaming "Mommy, what did you do? Are we going ot jail? I want to sleep in my own bed! Daddy will be very angry with you if we go to jail!" I'm telling her to calm down and tried to explain what happened when the cop comes over. I hand over my license and registration and the whole time Lauren is still yelling..SO the cop flashes his flashlight into the backseat and guess who doesn't have her seatbelt on? I know she put it on when we left our friend's house! She told me it just "came out". Maybe it did, I don't know. I ended up with a ticket, a child restraint violation and a nice talking to about being a responsible parent! Only me, only me...Thankfully my wonderful husband did not yell at me when he conveniently found the ticket on the counter and has only made one smart alecky comment about it all week.
The good part of the week was that I was privileged to be able to attend an incredible birth of a friend of mine. I love my job! Each birth is such testimony to the power of prayer. My friend was actually scheduled to have a c-section (not by choice) and she decided that if she was supposed to have a natural delivery she would go into to labor before the c-section was to take place. We all just prayed for God to give her peace about all of it.  Twenty four hours before her scheduled section her water broke. She was able to have the beautiful, drug free birth that she desired. God is in complete control of every little aspect of our lives! To some of you this may sound crazy, but my job is to help my clients have a positive birth experience, even if that means a c-section. If a mom doesn't feel good about the birth, then it can cause all kinds of post partum issues. Fifty percent of birth is phsycological.

Springtime fun!

.This is how real girls play football.....

in a skirt!

Two and half weeks!

My fast from fiction ends in two and a half weeks! The first week was hard, but after that my life became incredibly busy all of a sudden. I think it was a good thing. If I wasn't busy, I would have caved. I haven't really thought much about it. I even went to the library with Lauren yesterday and didn't even stop in the fiction section! I took out books on home organization instead....yes, I felt a bit like a loser with my big stack of DIY books. Anyway, I think that this has been a good experience. My priorities will be different when this is over!

Organization Destination

Ok, I have something to confess....I have a problem when it comes to organizing papers.. I can make things look organized at a glance, but if you look closer it's really a mess. One of the biggest issues that Paul and I have is trying to find something when we need it. It's the typical "Where is ___?  "I don't know. I thought you had it."  Things seemed to just end up in a stack on the desk. I finally decided that I was sick of it. I found an awesome website that is geared toward helping you organize your home. It's http://www.organizedhome.com/  I love it! I am slightly OCD and this site helps me use it in a positive way.  This site helped me put together a whole filing system that is practical and something that both Paul and I will use. I'm so excited to be free of all my paper clutter! No more sifting through papers!

Feeling old...

You know when you were in your early 20's and you could stay up all night and still function the next day? Well, today I am reminded that I am in my 30's. Last night I was able to witness an incredible birth and see a new little life come into the world. I got home home at 3:30 this morning and then had to be up to go to my little part time job at 6:30. Lauren was very nice and let me lay on the couch for 20 minutes when I got home this afternoon! I don't know why I get so shocked at myselfwhen it takes me longer and longer to recover from these overnight appearences that these babies like to make! All of my doula friends call it the baby "hangover," No matter how short or long the birth is you always come out extremely wrung out. I really can't complain, though...being able to witness the miracle of life is totally worth losing a little sleep over!

I have to share a funny comment from yesterday. I have been using Aveda hair products and if you have used them you know that they smell "earthy." Paul jokingly commented on my smelling like a hippie. Lauren heard him and says " What? My mommy smells like a hippo? Paul and I both cracked up.  Anyway, that was a bit of humor from our day....

Update on the Little Lady...

I really need to put some pictures up on here! Sorry I'm such a slacker....Ok, we had a neurology appointment today. I have to say that I love our neurologist. He listens! Today was her follow up to see how her medication was doing. Good news is the siezures are pretty much gone from what we can tell. Bad news is the side effects from the medication are causing issues. I know that every medication has side effects and I  am living in a dream world if I think that I can find one that is perfectly harmless. Lauren's personality seemed to alter slightly once we started this medication. She is very irritable and gets angry really easily. This is not at all our happy go lucky little girl. She complains of headaches and stomach pain daily and we have to force feed her half the time. Some days she is fine, but other days you have to bribe her.When your four year old is in the fetal position on her bed crying because her stomach hurts, you start to realize that this isn't normal. I went into the appointment thinking that we were going to have to live with this, but the Dr. listened to all the issues and suggested that we either lower her dosage of the current medication or switch her to one the has less side effects. For right now we are choosing to just lower her dosage and see if her side effects lessen at all. If it doesn't work, we have the other option. The tricky thing is trying to tell the difference between the problems.  It's kind of a guessing game right now to see which issues are medication induced and which ones are just due to the epilepsy. Epileptics suffer from headaches sometimes, but they can also be caused by medication. The same thing with the mood swings. It's hard to process the fact that even though we don't see the seizures anymore because of the anti-siezure med, she is still has epilepsy. The epilepsy is having it's own effects on her brain while we are just seeing the outward medication effects. I am very thankful to have options now, but feel a little overwhelmed. Cutting down her dosage means that there is a possiblity of her having siezures again until we get the dosage right...slightly scary. You know what, though?  We serve a God who is sovereign over all things. That is my comfort!

Let's go shopping!

I am always looking for unique jewelry and things. A few months ago I discovered etsy.com. Now my very creative sister n law is on there! Go check her out!
http://faradaisyjean.etsy.com/  

Time goes by...

The hardest thing about this fast from fiction is filling up my time with productive things and not replacing my addiction with another one! I am doing better than I thought I would.  I have only read one fiction book in two weeks. The book on cd that I listened to on the way home from my mom's doesn't count because it was an educational biography! At least that's what I'm telling myself...
Lauren and I made it back from D.C. in one piece, barely....one slightly scary event involving driving through a blizzard and having a tow truck pull us out of a snow bank. We were fine and the car was fine. The most hilarious part was Lauren yelling from the back seat that daddy would be quite upset with me if I went "sledding" down the road again! I thank God for His protection over us! I have some pictures to post from our trip, but I can't figure out how to get them off my camara phone onto the computer. My digital camara died as soon as I actually wanted to use it! Figures!
March is looking to be pretty busy. Waiting on two babies to make their way into the world and trying to get some massage clients in where I can.  I find myself wondering why I feel so worn out sometimes when I only have one child. There are so many of you who have multiple children and full time jobs! You brave women, you! Maybe I'm just getting wimpy...