No Words, Just Love for These Boys

Zero Calorie Cheesecake

Guilt free dessert? No........our sweet doggie! Cheesecake! Sweet name! Sweet dog! We adopted this lab mix a little over two months ago through the friends of a friend. Thanks Franco Family!

Some people thought we were nuts. Taking on a new dog when we had both a toddler and a 4 week old? Well, you know us. Always up for a challenge! Cheesecake has fit in to our family well.....I have never seen a more gentle animal with children. James loves to give her kisses and hugs. He is just now getting into playing with her. Brendan gives her big smiles. Although she weighs nearly 60 lbs she thinks she is lapdog. She is 2 years old and loves to play, but still curls up at your feet and is pretty mellow too. Her favorite things have to be: galloping around the yard, following us everywhere, chewing on chews sticks, looking out the window, getting petted and finding the stray baby sock and running all over the house with it. We are working on not being so excited when we have guests come over, but that is really our only problem so far. My favorite thing about Cheesecake is how she lies in front of the cribs where our boys sleep, guarding them. It is precious! Aside from a belt belonging to Daniel she has not torn anything up. She's such a great animal! Our cat Tucker is so glad to have company. After a few days they became fast friends, thank goodness!

Welcome to the family Cheezers! We are glad you are here!

The All Nighter

Long time no talk. So here I am on my chair, which has served as my bed for the last week or so, listening to the sounds of a soothing heartbeat from a little device hooked over the side of the basniette and from within the basinette itself, the congested breathing of my second born. It's been a long night. Ok, why lie. It's been a long couple of weeks. I had the hernia surgery on Nov. 5. More to come about that huge mistake later on. Right now all I am caring about is this little human lying next to me. I must admit I am impressed by my power of resolve to stay awake with Brendan. One would think this would be a difficult task given the amount of totally sedating drugs I have had pumped into my system in the last 24 hours. But motherhood trumps morphine and here I am watching his little chest rise and fall in the dim light from the television set. Little man is so congested I am a nervous wreck and felt the need to keep an eye on him all night. I keep checking his breathing my lying my hand on his chest in those rare moments I can't hear his raspy breath. When he has cried tonight he was been hoarse. I am pretty sure his throat must hurt, I want to make sure he is getting enough air, that he isn't turing blue around the lips or fingernails. He is still so little that I decided he needed someone to watch him close. That someone of course, would be me. To make this easier, I started by staying up until 12:30am before I even sat down with him. We followed the WebMD protocall after Dr. Mom (that's me) diagnosed B with croup. I could be wrong but I doubt it. This is the second night of fits of "barking" coughs. First night there was only one fit and it was very short. I was hoping it was a freak thing. Nope. Tonight there have been many. I will be taking this sweet thing to urgent care as soon as they open up. He has no fever, his mood is great. He is that same cuddly, smiley, awesomely mellow baby we've been eating up for the last three months. But boy does he sound horrible now. Some of these sounds coming from him sound so loud and so foreign to his sweet gurgle and coos that it is pretty alarming. We've done the steamy bathroom thing, the humidifer thing, the baby Vick's on feet and chest thing, the temperature taking thing, the propping upright thing, the saline and nasal aspirator thing. Not a lot of relief so far. At the moment he is sound asleep and I am glad he is resting peacefully. I know I have catnapped here and there. I sat my alarm on my cell phone to go off every two hours so I could check on him in case I dozed off. Turns out I didn't need it. I have been awake every time it has gone off. The house is pretty quiet. Daniel and James are sleeping soundly. I am hoping James sleeps late so that I can grab a quick nap once Daniel gets up. So please everybody think of Brendan today. Will be back soon to let you know how he is and also to catch up on things over the last week or so. Take care everyone!

Wouldn't you pull an all nighter for this guy?

Halloween 2009

So I have always really loved Halloween! As a kid I used to look forward to it for weeks! Some of my costumes included a mouse (my first Halloween), Michael Jackson (complete with a leather jacket, white glove and a Pepsi can....I was 3), a gloworm (this was one of those 80s costumes with the mask and then the plastic smock that actually had written on it what you were supposed to be), an old witch and a she-devil. As a teenager I even dressed up as Bill Clinton and my friend was Monica Lewinsky (with the blue dress and everything!). My dad would take my friend Clint and I around our neighborhood and we'd come home and sort our candy. Yes folks, I was OCD even then. We would carve the pumpkin and my parents would decorate the atrium near our front door with fake spider webs and big spiders. My mom would hang up pumpkin decorations all over the house and she also included this skeleton decoration that was connected with brads so you could pose it in different positions. That was the one decoration that freaked me out. I remember asking her to move it because I felt like it was staring at me! There was a house in my neighborhood that had a little haunted house you could go through. I am pretty sure they owned a funeral home because they had real coffins right there in their house! They would have people jump out and scare you and bowls of peeled grapes and cold noodles you stuck your hands in. These were supposed to be all sorts of brains and other gross stuff. Instead of being horrified, I loved it all. It was awesome!

Back then I would never have imagined that Halloween could possibly get more fun. I was wrong! Dressing up Brendan and James, carving the pumpkin on my own kitchen table, walking around our own neighborhood to trick-or-treat and making the "pumpkin brownie" with my mom for my own kids were all perks of parenthood! (The "pumpkin brownie" is an idea my mom got from a magazine ad for Betty Crocker in the early 80s. We made when I was growing up and we are continuing the tradition for our kids now). James liked it all so much. Can't wait for B to get into it too! Check out my train and my monkey. I think you'll agree they're pretty cute!