Happy Birthday Allie!!

Ok, so enough with the Big A, Middle A and baby A stuff b/c its just too cold sounding. Allie turned five today and I took the day off to hang with her.  We had a BLAST.  Our day started off with donuts, followed by a trip to Build-A-Bear, Target, lunch at Applebees, and then we got our toes done. It was awesome. Tonight we'll meet our family at a pizza place for a quick bite, and then BED.  Time out with this little miss has worn me out but it was so much fun!!!
Allie is my "spirited" child...she is SO energetic, full of life, full of herself, dramatic, sweet...she is a mixed bag. You never know whats coming next! (Just like her daddy). She is waaay funnier than I am, and sometimes I'm amazed that a kid of mine has such a great sense of humor.  ;)

Showing off the double chocolate donut she chose

picking out the perfect heart for her bunny

giving our new friend "Rainbow" a hug

Looking for the perfect toy at Target

Aaaand pictures from Allie past...

Dear Kidneys and Bladder:

I would like to thank you for your efficient and timely processing of fluids.  It is not at all annoying to have to pee again on my way back from the bathroom from just peeing. And honestly, I dont enjoy sleeping that much, so the 11 times you woke me up last night...I forgive you. I just appreciate your timely removal of waste fluid.  And seriously, I enjoyed stopping three time on an hour trip (to pick up big A from 4H camp).  How else could I have enjoyed wading through the gas station owner's CHICKENS to get to their only bathroom...waaaay out back??  To be fair, they were nice chickens.

I am very much over the peeing.  Ironically, I'm so thirsty I have to have water on me ALL the time. The irony seems quite cruel to be honest.

PICA and sheer jealousy!

So while preggers with Middle A, I had PICA, and unless you've had it, you have no clue how frustrating it is to want to eat things that are, by definition, inedible.  If you've had a baby, you've likely had cravings and as everyone knows...when you crave something, you MUST. HAVE. IT. NOW.  So, when I started wanting dry clay and chalk, I knew I had a problem. Ironically, at the time there was some random special on TV about a man who was creating mineral supplements out of genuine dried clay and I watched the whole thing, drooling and hoping they'd post some order information (the didnt).  My dr and I tried to figure out what sort of deficiency might be causing this odd craving, and came up with nothing. So, I was doomed to suffer three months of unsatisfaction.  I had to get creative.  I started eating TUMS by the bottle. Necco Wafers worked ok too.  And....Space Ice Cream!!  The dry, chalky texture sort of helped curb the NEED for clay. 

Luckily, while pregnant with Baby A, I had no such cravings at all! With this baby, so far so good...except I really really really wanted some Astronaut Ice Cream.  And guess what (this is where the jealousy part comes in...) I FOUND it (see, don't you wish you were me??).  Actually, it wasnt even hard to find, but I thought it would be this huge, colossal task.  Turns out, people sell it all over the place. I had been buying it at our Old Navy for like, $5 a teeny bag, and then I discovered this little gem.  I bought a small case.  :)  Now, I can eat it to my hearts content. I'm so happy.  Dont be jealous...if you're nice, I'll share.

23 weeks pregnant

So, I'm 23 weeks now...and nothing really to report...baby boy Carroll is busy busy busy.  I swear he grew a ton just last night...all of a sudden, I'm only slightly smaller than a whale.  Pretty soon Sea World will be calling.  Its bad, I'm huge.  I don't eat a lot, I'm just ginormous.  I've decided I'm going to have to hit up P90X once this baby is out and work the heck out.  I'm tired of the flubber.

Anyhoo, the baby is doing great and growing growing! He has cycles now, and I can predict pretty well when he'll be awake and moving.  I often forget that I'm pregnant.  I mean, I'm good and uncomfortable, but I keep forgetting its because theres a BABY in there.  Its weird...like we're too busy to remember.  But its good too b/c I dont have time to focus on feeling run down.  Except for yesterday...it took me forever to get out of the house b/c I just felt SO WORN. I couldnt stand for too long without just feeling exhausted!

Braxton Hicks are picking up like crazy.  I'll have none, and then (like right this second) I'll have a bunch in a row.  I'm excited for next week b/c its viability week!  24 is the magic number when it comes to delivery because at that point they'd actually try and save him. 

I've just started buying some baby boy things, and I'm definately tending towards little man type clothes. I have bought a bunch of little button down shirts, little teeny cargos, little polo shirts...love it! I'm not so much into the softy baby stuff.  Obviously when he's brand new I'll have some softies, but I just love the look of a baby boy in teeny man clothes. 

I've decided to put the little girls into a room together and give him Baby A's room.  Its already a nice baby blue and owl themed, which is pretty gender neutral. I just have to take all the pink owls out and replace them with brown ones. I'll put pictures up once I get it straight. The little girls will be getting bunk beds, and Big A will stay right where she is. We are keeping the playroom as is because its nice to have a room dedicated JUST to toys.  That was probably a lot more information than anyone needed, but so be it! :)

Just Dance

HOW did we not catch on to the wonder that is Just Dance until a third one had already come out?? My kids freaking love it and they are SO darn cute.  Even the baby dances with her sisters and has "her song." Heck, even my dad did it!  I love love love this game because they can play Wii on a rainy day and still be moving and not sitting around like a bump on a log.  Yay Wii!

Job: Fail.

I'm not so sure I'm even going to post this...I really just need to get some stuff off my chest.  Something happened at work today that just brought up so many emotions, and I dont know what to do with them. 

A while back, I was working with a family in an attempt to avoid putting the children in foster care.  There were two little girls and a boy.  The mother was a hoarder, but more of the lazy sort. She had no attachment to the trash in her house, she was just too lazy to clean it up.  She was perfectly happy to have others do it for her.  There were bugs, fleas (which I had posted about my allergic reaction to over the summer), rodents, and mold. It was horrible.  The year that I worked with the family, I had two in-home counselors coming, and offered numerous resources to help her get and stay on her feet.  Even her homeowner's insurance company thought the house unfit as they cancelled her policy.  Whilst this was going on, she met a man and moved him into her house. Within a few weeks, she had the kids calling him dad.  Ok, red flags everywhere, but I had no proof of anything. 

This man...he was very creepy...a weasley sort. I wouldnt have trusted him with my dog, let alone my children.  I did not understand what he saw in this woman as she was hygenically challenged in every way possible, lazy as all get-out, manipulative, and...well...straight cray cray. 

Today, I found out why he was interested in her little family.  A few months ago, there was so little progress with the mother, that the children had to be removed.  The house was deplorable and the boyfriend had started beating the children with belts.  Enough was enough.  Shortly afterward, someone found child indescretions on his computer (I am NOT going to put what it is actually called on this blog because I do not want any perverts doing a search term and ending up here)...which then led to an investigation of his cell phone.  Where pictures of this woman's children were found.  I am horrified that for an entire year, I couldn't prove this pervert was living there.  For a year these children suffered because I could not prove what he was doing.  We ALL had our suspicions, but ultimately we were trying to get the mother to straighten up her life.  I think all in all, there are over 1000 pictures.

Now mom...we have suspicion that she knew all along what he was doing....just as sick.  Since her children were removed, she has moved in with another man, and has posted online how happy and carefree her life is.  WTF?? What kind of mother is this?  I just DONT UNDERSTAND. 

So, I feel like I failed these children.  I should have known, should have dug deeper.  When you see things online and on tv about how social services fails children...please know that MOST of us try SO hard to protect them, but the families don't give us what we need. They are SO good at covering things up.  We are bound by laws and statutes and can't just investigate things on a whim.  I just wish he had given me something along the way that I could have used to dive into it.  I am so very sad for these kids. So so so sad.  NO child should ever have to experience this.

Snow!

( I had originially written this last weekend when it DID snow, but the pics wouldn't upload.  Since then, temps reached 80 degrees in VA...no wonder everyone around here is always sick!)

So, I grew up in CT. I have seen more snow than I can to remember. Years 0-12 it was fine, because I'd much rather play in it than do anything else.  Once it started interfering with my social life, it began to piss me off. In CT, we had LOTS of snow/blizzards/power outages (the worst was two weeks...ugh).  Anyhoo, while it was pretty to look at, it began to get on my nerves. I hated being stuck in the house...made even worse if there were no phones!!  (yeah, this was long before cell phones)  I can not even begin to tell you how many times my little VW got stuck!  As I've slowly moved my way down the East coast, I've enjoyed the diminishing amounts of snow and warmer climates...so much so that I actually enjoy white stuff now and again.  Last night, we had a lovely dusting and it took forever to accumulate, but by bedtime, there was enough to play in, so we let the girls stay up and romp around for a while. They had SO MUCH FUN.  That is my newfound joy in snow.  Baby A doesnt remember it from last year, so she was soooo excited.  It was all fun and games until someone got a snowball in the eye.  She rallied quickly though and we didnt make them come in until their little cheeks were good and chapped.   :)