30...Flirty...and Thriving

Did you ever see that movie, '13 going on 30'? With Jennifer Garner? And she's all in her akward teenage years, but then sees an article on the cover of her favorite magazine (Poise), and it says "30, Flirty and Thriving"...and she decides she wants to be 30, and , when she wakes up, she's 30?? Yeeeaahhh...I'm her. Except I look nothing like Jennifer Garner, nor do I feel Flirty and Thriving...but, I AM 30. Yes I am. Today, I am 30. Holy Poop Flakes, I'm 30.

OK, done obsessing about that now. I joked with my BFF today at lunch that I'm 30, Dirty, and Sagging. I'm dirty because I have 5 kids, and I'm lucky if I get to shower every OTHER day...but it's usually more like every other OTHER day. hehe. And I'm sagging because, well, because I have 5 kids. Need I say more?

But it's cool. I have gorgeous kiddos, a wonderful husband, and a Shark Steam Pocket Mop (my bday gift from hubby...which I ASKED for, by the way...that's how you know you're 30 and lame, when you want a MOP for your bday).

So...I'm saying 'So Long' to my 20's, and entering a new decade. I've grown and learned so much from 20 to 30, I'm looking forward to the lessons I'll learn over the next 10 years.

Hooray for Bullet Time

OK, so I tried to post sometime last week, but Blogger was not letting me. It was giving me some sort of "You cant post right now, because Blogger sucks" kind of message. So, I gave up, and now here we are...and all I can do is bullet. Because that's what I do when I haven't blogged in awhile and need to catch up.

And away we go...

• There is a Dollar Tree getting ready to go in by the Target!! Can you say, "YIPPEE!!!"??? I can...and I said it out loud to myself in the car when I was driving by Target and saw the sign that said "Dollar Tree coming soon". YIPPEE!!


• My daughter, Cita, turned 8 on March 30th. WHAT? 8 years has NOT gone by since she was born. That is just ridiculous. She should be 3 or something.


• I started to work part-time last Monday. I'm telecommuting for 4 hours per day...with my infant son at home since I'm still nursing. Yeah...it's going awesome. But seriously, I'm just sort of getting my feet wet again as I prepare to return back full time on May 10th. It's going pretty well.


• My 2 year old's most commonly used phrase at this juncture is "I do it MYTHELF!"


• The craziness of my kids' sports has begun, but it really hasn't been as bad as I initially thought. That's the beauty of building something up to be MUCH worse than it actually is. Then, when it actually comes around, and doesn't quite reach the level of bad that you thought it was going to be, you can pretend that it doesn't suck THAT much.


• I started working out last week...to the program called "Insanity". I'm an infomercial, workout DVD junkie. Seriously. I have a bajillion workout programs on DVD...and am I ripped? Well, I just had a baby 7 weeks ago, so that's not fair to ask right this second. But have I EVER been ripped from using the DVD programs when I wasn't 7 weeks post-partum? Ummmm...nope. So why do I do it? I think it's all of the success stories that they put in the infomercials...I always find a bit of myself in some of those success stories. I just seriously lack the willpower. I've already missed 2 workouts, and this is only the beginning of Week 2. Argh. BUT, on the plus side, just from the workouts I DID do...I've lost 2 pounds and 1% body fat in one week. Maybe if I actually committed to these things, I could be ripped. :)


• We had a nice Easter. I took the girls to the park in the morning, and then we went to my Mother-in-Laws for lunch. She made a YUMMY ham, and salad, mashed potatoes, some creamy cauliflower and broccoli thing and bread rolls. Mmmmmmm. Then we had a custard cake with fresh fruit on top, and mandarin orange sherbet for dessert. Double Mmmmmm.


• Every stray cat in our neighborhood finds our house. Seriously. A new one just showed up this past week. It's white, with a couple black spots on its forehead and it yowls ultra loud. We don't let him in the house, but he has managed to sneak in a couple times and chase our other cats around. They don't like it.


• My knock off version of Spanx does a pretty good job of holding in the post-baby flabberoo. But when I take it off, my fat explodes out of it like it's relieved to have been released from its prison.


• AJ is getting HUGE! He's going to be 7 weeks tomorrow. I can't believe it's been that long.
• My husband's friend said that AJ has my cheeks. I was all "AJ's cheeks are FAT, what are you trying to say?"


• Aaron was in a motocross race this past weekend. He did pretty well. He's up against a lot more experienced dudes because they have more time to practice during the week. (Read: 17 year old kids with no jobs)


• My oldest, SAM, did great in her volleyball games on Saturday. On her last play, she tried to spike the ball, but hit the ball so hard that it flew over the net, and hit the wall behind the bleachers where all the parents were sitting. EEK!


• Why do 2 year olds have to wake up at the sound of the first bird chirp? I can't wait until she learns the concept of sleeping in on weekends.

OK, I think that's about all I can muster up for today. AJ has his 2 month appointment in a couple weeks...so I'll post more pictures then. OH YEAH, I looked at Baby Pants' measurements from her 2 year checkup, and she is 3 feet tall right now. My grandma says that if you measure a child when they are 2, and then double it, that's how tall they will be as an adult. That would make Baby Pants 6 feet tall...hmmmm...not sure about that one. Maybe we should put a basketball in her hand now. ;)

1 Month Pictures

Here's my little AJ at 1 month. :)

Getting Older...The Kids AND Me

AJ had his one month appointment last Friday morning. He's 10 1/2 pounds now! Yikers. My little guy is SOLID. They didn't go over percentiles with me this visit, but I'm pretty sure he's still up there. His circumcision area looks good - when the doctor was poking around down there, he peed on her...and me. hehe It was funny. Then she checked his ears, and guess what, my little guy has an ear infection. I guess all the coughy hacky sneezy that's been going on around here got to him too. Waaah. He's been a good sport though and hasn't been acting fussy at all. But now I have to give him antibiotics twice a day. He doesn't like it, but he tolerates it because he wubs me.

Baby Pants had her 2 yr appointment in conjunction with AJ. She's right on track as well - 36 pounds, and darn, I forget how long she is. I think it was because she started freaking out about getting measured, and we just got through it quickly. I'm not sure why, but for her last couple of doctor's visits, she has been totally freaking out every time. She has never had a traumatic experience at the doctor (we postponed immunizations) - so it's kind of odd. She has an ear infection now too, that she got WHILE on Amoxicillin for her upper respiratory infection - so her pediatrician switched antibiotics to a cephalosporin (sp?) which is once a day for 10 days. Now I have to go BACK to the doctor in 2 weeks for a follow up - seriously I have spent over $200 in the last week on doctor's visits and antibiotics...and that's WITH insurance. argh.

Anywho...hopefully the kids will all be better soon.

So, not only are my kids getting older, but apparently I am too. There was a segment on this Christian radio station that I listen to where the DJs were talking about getting older, and what things make them know they are getting older. So, at first, I had a hard time coming up with some - but then they just started flowing this week. I'm going to be 30 next month, and I know that's not "OLD" per se, but it is 'older' than I was 10 years ago. And for sure some things have changed - and here's what I've come up with so far.

#1 - I can leave the house wearing glasses and no makeup. This would TOTALLY not have happened 10 years ago - I always put my contacts in before leaving the house, and always had a full face of makeup on before I set foot out the door. In fact I used to SLEEP in my makeup, just in case my house caught on fire and some hot firefighters needed to come rescue me. (that never happened by the way...hehe)


#2 - The things that I want for gifts are starting to become WAY practical. Is it sad that what I really want for my birthday this year is a Shark Steam Pocket Mop? It will make mopping my floors SO much easier, and supposedly it disinfects too, which is a good feature. What ever happened to wanting clothes and CDs?


#3 - I drive a freakin' beasty of an SUV. When I was a younger mom, of only one child, I drove a really cute Mitsubishi Eclipse sports car (the cute bubbly model - not the newer boring looking one). I had already graduated to a smaller SUV by the time baby #2 came around, which was a Ford Escape - and that one stuck with me through baby #3, and pregnancy of baby #4 - but, yeah - the Escape only fit 5 people total - so a hubby, wife, and 4 kiddos was NOT going to fit. I am STILL putting off the minivan...so I got an Expedition instead - BUT, I am really starting to see the benefits of the minivan, especially the ones that have the auto-sliding doors. Ugh...I'm destined to a be a minivan mom, I can tell.


#4 - I commented on a friend's blog this week (a younger friend), and mentioned the Vanilla Ice song "Ice, Ice Baby"...and...she had never heard of it. Waaaaaaah. (Sorry Michelle...had to blog about it - it's funny, but also makes me feel super old). Also - if you haven't checked out her blog yet, check it out here.


#5 - My date nights no longer consist of "clubbin" - and if they do, we feel totally dumb and out of place. We usually just hit up casual bars or coffee houses with acoustic music now.


#6 - My older kids think I'm a dork.


#7 - I've been friends with my BFFs for over half my life time...we're talkin like 20+ years yo. I met my BFF in 1988 - we didn't become BFFs till around 90 or 91 - but still....that's a long freakin time.

OK, that's all I can write about now - I'm getting somewhat depressed. hehe. No, it's really OK - in all honesty, I have been looking forward to my 30th birthday since my 20th birthday. When I turned 20, I had already been a mom for almost 3 years - and I was tired of having the 'teen mom' label. I was also working with women who were in their late 20's/early 30's, and they seemed to have life so much more together than I did. So I thought I would have life all figured out by 30, and that things would be awesome and great.

I don't have life figured out..but things are pretty awesome and great I'd have to say. So, I guess getting older isn't all THAT bad. :)

3 Things

I love my mom for giving me blog fodder via email forwards...but don't blame me for the copy/paste format - it didn't turn out pretty.

Three Things About Me

A. Three names I go by:

1. Crystal
2. Chris
3. Mom/Mommy/Momma

B. Three places I’ve lived:

1 California
2 Nevada
3 Arizona


C. Three places I’ve worked:

1 Pomas Ristorante
2 Sierra Health Services
3 360 Vantage

D. Three things I love to watch:

1 Criminal Minds
2 Gilmore Girls
3 Celebrity Apprentice (new season just started!)

E. Three places I have been:

1 San Francisco, CA
2 Rocky Point, Mexico
3 Raleigh, NC

F. Three people that email me regularly: (not including co-workers)

1 Nana
2 Mom
3 Victoria's Secret (darn me for signing up for their emails, not like I can wear any of that crap now)

G. Three things I love to eat:

1 Cheese Enchiladas
2 Fried Ice Cream
3 Fruit

I. Three things I am looking forward to:

1 Getting back in shape
2 Riding my dirtbike again
3 Buying a house someday

Mastitis and Upper Respiratory Infections

Yeah...you can tell right off the bat that this blog is going to be gross. Sorry.

So, Sunday afternoon/early evening, I started running a low grade fever, accompanied by chills. Uh oh...I thought I was getting the flu. I started taking ibuprofen to control the fever, and it helped make me feel better and get rid of the chills as well. It continued on into the next day, and I kept waiting to feel worse...much worse. But, I didn't really. So, what did I do? I googled "postpartum fever and chills" and it brought up some links about people really freaking out about having fever and chills during the post-partum period, but I did not get caught up in the hysteria. I just kept scrolling on down - and then I saw a little blip of 'breast soreness, fever and chills'...and I was like "Hey...now that you mention it, my left breast IS pretty sore"...so I clicked, and read on. The article led me to symptoms for Mastitis, which is pretty common for breastfeeding mamas like myself...and can cause flu-like symptoms...but needs to be treated with antibiotics pretty much ASAP, otherwise you can develop a nasty abscess. (ew...ewwwww). So, I got myself into the doctor yesterday and got started on my antibiotics. In a way, kinda glad it was mastitis and not the flu...the flu usually hangs on for awhile, and not really needing that right now.

Then...today, I had to take 3 of my kiddos to the doctor for their runny nose hacky sneezy thing that has been carrying on in our household for seriously over a month. No fevers...just sniffle sniffle cough hack sneeze hack sniffle...all..day...long. I'd been 'controlling' it with Zyrtec, but honestly it didn't really seem like it was helping all that much. And today I had finally had enough of it - so I took everyone to the doctor's office. I knew what they would say - "Upper Respiratory Infections - Here's some amoxicillin"...and that's what they said. So, now they are on antibiotics too. Gosh I hate pumping my kids full of drugs...but I was seriously at my wits end with dealing with the neverending congestion. So here's to hoping that the antibiotics will do the trick. I'm also sure that the house that we're renting, which is a bajillion years old, has so much caked up dirt and grime in the air ducts that I am thisclose to paying the $55 to get the air ducts cleaned. Hubby thinks that air duct cleaning is a scam - that they come in and then try and upsell you a new A/C unit...maybe they do...but I know how to say "No thank you, just the ducts please." I think I'm gonna do it anyway.

Also, I'm pretty sure I'm insane for signing all 3 of my older kids up for an extracurricular sport. Did I not realize that having 3 children in sports means - 3 different practice days & times and 3 games on Saturdays for the next month and a half??? Plus they have a midweek church event that they participate in. So, pretty much 3 of my weeknights and all day Saturday are spoken for until May. What in the HECK was I thinking? Oh that's right...I was thinking that since my oldest daughter got to play a couple seasons ago, that it was only FAIR that if the other girls wanted to play something that they should get the opportunity to, and that guilted me into signing all of them up. BUT, I also have no qualms about saying "Sorry kids, it's just too much" if it does indeed turn out to be too much - and they'll just have to get over it, because I'm not going to lose my mind over volleyball and tball for little kids.

2 Weeks *Updated with Pics*

So my little AJ is 2 weeks old, as of yesterday. We had his newborn follow-up yesterday afternoon. It should have been the week before, but my little Cita was home sick for 3 days that week, so I didn't take him in.

He has gained 7 oz, so he's now 9 1/2 pounds...and they measured him at 21.5 inches - which is half an inch longer than at birth - but the nurse said that sometimes the hospital measurements are different - and she said most babies appear to "shrink" when they have their first doctor's appointments due to the measurements being 'off'. So, he's above the 90th percentile in both height and weight for now - which I totally believe, cuz the dude eats like he's not going to get fed again. hehe (kinda like his daddy)

And GUESS WHAT? So, I've been a mom for almost 13 years - I've had 5 children now...and I learned something NEW about babies yesterday at the appointment. A little background...for my first few children (1997, 2002, and 2004), the instructions given about umbilical cord treatment was to put alcohol on it every day until it falls off. Fast forward to 2008 when my 4th daughter was born, and the instructions are to not put ANYTHING on it, and just let it fall off on its own. Little AJ's umbilical cord stump has still not fallen off - and it was starting to emit a foul odor...so I'll be darned what "the instructions" say, I put alcohol on the darn thing. So, when I took him to his appt, my pediatrician asked if I had any concerns - and I mentioned that his cord hadn't fallen off and that it was getting stinky. And I told her that I put a bit of alcohol around it, even though technically I wasn't "supposed to". She said that it was OK to put a little alcohol around the edges for odor control. And then she proceeds to tell me what causes the odor..."The way that the umbilical cord falls off, is that bacteria EAT away at the cord causing it to fall off - and the bacteria is what causes the odor." Internal dialogue to myself..."WHAT????!!!! Are you freaking kidding me? That is REALLY gross!". What I actually said out loud, "Wow...I did not know that."

So, the phrase "You learn something new every day" really applied yesterday. Can I just say...ewww.