Trick or Treat!

I'm sitting here, waiting for little trick or treaters to make their way up my sidewalk and knock on my door.  Where are they?  It's been 30 minutes since trick or treat started, and not one child yet.  Porch light is on  (that was last years mistake.  "why are they skipping our house?"), candy is in bowl, I weedwacked the weeds in the yard so we wouldn't be "those" neighbors,  my house looks clean if you just stand at the front door.  Everything is ready, and not one kid yet.  I seriously look forward to trick or treat night every year since I have been an adult.  I love passing out candy.  Really.  Well, I'm sure they'll get here at some point.  

We decided what we're doing about vaccines... for now.  We are going to wait until Ezekiel is two months according to his adjusted age (ie two months after his due date) to possibly start some of the vaccines on an alternate schedule.  We know we don't want hepatitis B, Polio, and DTaP.  We're still researching the rest.  I've added more links to vaccine websites off to the right, and there are some good ones there.  I am so tired of being asked about this at the NICU.  We've already explained many, many times to many different doctors what our plans/views are.  Another doctor asked again yesterday, and said he wanted to sit down and talk about it today.  SOOOO I printed off 40 or 50 pages worth of information about vaccines, and then went through it all and highlighted everything that I thought was pertinent to our situation.  Good thing I got up early this morning.  I took it in to give to said doctor, and guess who wasn't there?  Yup.  It's ok, I will shove it all in his hands the next time I see him.  I will say, "here are some of the reasons we don't want to vaccinate just yet.  If you want to give me any reading materials, I will gladly read them."  (two little ninjas just came to my door!)  I hope he will actually read some of the stuff I give him.  I could go on, but I will stop.  Can't they just write it in our file that we plan to wait until he is older to start vaccinations, and just stop hassling us about it?  Ok, stopping now.  

I think that's all I have to say today.  I will have to put a picture of Zeke in his costume up later.... I don't have one just yet, but he's awfully cute!

I did my to-do list

I did everything on my to-do list today!  Yay!  Pat me on the back.  Ok, since you can't reach, I will do it for you. :) 

I feel like I never, ever get enough things done in a day.  There is always something else to clean, something in the fridge that needs to be cooked, oil needs changed, laundry needs done, bills need payed, animals need fed, laundry needs done again, I need showered, and the list goes on and on and on.... as I'm sure it does for you, as well.

Here is my solution!  Acutally, Daniels solution.... he suggested it: Make your to-do list shorter.  Amazingly, it works!  Instead of writing on my daily to-do list (which I write every morning while pumping) enough things for a week and expecting to get it done in one day, I write enough for one actual day.  Or maybe even a little less than enough for one day.  Then I'm sure to get it all done, which makes me feel better, which keeps me motivated to do it all again the next day.  You see, I LOVE crossing things off my to-do list.  If I cross off less than half, I feel like a failure.  A short to-do list cures this problem.  Here was my list today.  

pump (8 times)

mail bills 

clean for 1 hour

visit Ezekiel

take care of animals (there's a lot!)

make dinner

I did it all!  Ok, I still have to pump more before bed.  But my to-do list got done.  Here is what my to-do list would normally look like, before Daniels sage advice...

pump (8 times)

visit Ezekiel

clean out car

get oil change

schedule ob appointment

pay bills 

take care of animals

change air filters in the house

put air in car tires

clean garage

organize upstairs closet

5 loads of laundry

file giant stack of misc. papers

dust light fixtures

bake bread for the week

excercize

grocery store

change burnt-out lightbulbs

You see how I can become overly-ambitious?  And then, in my overly-ambitousness, I get next to nothing done.  I don't understand how I can have such a strong desire for cleanliness and organization and have my whole house/life be so unorganized.  I guess I'm just not disciplined enough.  But I'm getting better.  My new plan is to clean one hour a day (on top of daily things like dishes, bed-making (ha!),  and the occasional load of laundry) and then.... stop.  No more cleaning for that day.  This is what usually happens:  Our house becomes a giant disaster over a few weeks.  I hardly clean at all, hardly pick up anything that lands in random places.  Then I just can't take it anymore, and spend literally an ENTIRE day cleaning.  Then I am so sick of cleaning that i don't clean for another few weeks.  Then it all starts all over.  I hate this cycle.  I want to live in a clean house ALL the time.  I don't like clutter.  I don't like worrying about tripping over things on my midnight treck to the bathroom.  

Anyway, my new plan is working well so far.  My dear friend Aimee is keeping me accountable to my daily hour committment.  So far it's been 3 days, and so far I have kept up, and there is an improvement in the state of our house.  My only problem is that once I get going, I don't like to stop.... so when my hour timer goes off (yes, I need a timer) I normally keep cleaning for another half hour, at least.  Today I must have cleaned for 3 hours.  And that's where the problem comes in-- I don't want to clean that much everyday because it's demoralizing.  I also tend to get caught up in little things... you know, loose sight of the forest for the trees..... so while you can't walk up the steps without tripping on some piece of clothing, roll of toilet paper, or random shoe that is trying to make its' way upstairs, and our bedroom is strewn with clothing and books,  I was cleaning the vaccume cleaner, scrubbing baseboards, vaccuming spider webs from the ceiling, scrubbing the front door, and taking down the curtains to give them a wash.  Hello Kristin!  Pick up all the crap on the floor before you wash the curtains.  It's common sense.  Sigh.    But regardless, it all needs done, and as long as something is cleaned daily, I'm doing better.  And better is all I'm going for right now.  

In other news, I want to make this for Ezekiel.  I'm really excited about it.  I ordered the rings so now all I need is some nice fabric.  Ooooh yay....  I can just see myself happily buzzing away on the sewing machine with a nice hot cup of coffee and christmas music playing in the background (yes, it's time for christmas music!).  Snuggly slippers and pajamas on.  House perfectly clean.  Me feeling perfectly domestic.  Ahhh... what a lovely picture.  My overly-ambitious self wants to make many slings for all the babies I know who are making their way into the world right now.  But my reasonable self tells me to just make one first and see how it goes.  I'm trying to start listening to my reasonable self.  

Oh and by the way.... be sure to participate in my poll in the top right corner.  Who voted for the chevy prism?  Daniel, was that you?  

But dust

This was too cute.  Thanks Teresa! 

I think this Mom will never forget this particular Sunday sermon... 'Dear Lord,' the minister began, with arms extended toward heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned face. 'Without you, we are but dust...' He would have continued but at that moment my very obedient daughter who was listening leaned over to me and asked quite audibly in her shrill little four year old girl voice, 'Mom, what is butt dust?

He's as heavy as a sack of potatoes!

Ezekiel finally weighed in at a whopping 5lbs last night!  YAY!  He also got to try and eat from a bottle.  Unfortunately he didn't do so well... he would suck, but he wouldn't swollow-- he would just let all the milk dribble out of his mouth.  He was very wide-eyed and alert, as you can see in this picture.  He is 12 weeks old today.  

I thought I would put up some baby pictures of Daniel and I.  You all will have to let me know who you think Zeke looks more like!  This is me and my mom.  I don't have any newborn pictures of myself.... you wanna e-mail me one, mom? :)

 The picture below is Daniel as a newborn.  Obviously Ezie looks an awful lot like his daddy!Yesterday they decided to send off cultures to make sure Ezie isn't still carrying MRSA.  Please pray that the cultures come back negative.  If they don't, he will have to go back on contact precautions (ie we won't be able to touch him skin to skin anymore!).    Other than that, everything seems to be going well.  

Oh, and (thank God!) I no longer smell like onions!  

I love failblog!

see more pwn and owned pictures

Pajamas!

Warning:  Do not keep reading if you are easily grossed out.

Does anyone know why I smell like onions?!  Not just any onions--- purple onions.  All the time.  I'm seriously embarassed to be around people.  It's very strong- Daniel can notice it from a distance!!  I suppose this started 5 or 6 days ago, and it's bad.  I haven't been eating any onions at all.  In fact, I normally eat a LOT of onions and never have any problems.  But with Daniel on the raw milk diet I haven't been cooking at all, so no onion intake.  I don't understand.  Deodorant isn't helping!

I did notice that durring pregnancy I had a very notable lack of body odor.  I could sweat and sweat and I wouldn't smell at all.  Then immediately postpartum I stunk horribly for about two weeks.  Then back to normal, and now this.  I have been taking fenugreek to help with my milk supply, and so I thought it could be that.  But everything I googled said that fenugreek makes you smell like maple syrup.  I would much rather smell like yummy maple syrup than stinky nasty onions.  

Ok, other moms, let me know what's going on here!  I need your help!!

OH my goodness I can't believe I haven't posted in a week!  My how the time flies.  Between the hospital, pumping, sleeping, showering, taking care of animals, cooking (haven't done much of that), and doing any sort of cleaning (haven't done much of that, either...) I seem to run out of time to post.  I'm trying to get back on a normal schedule instead of my stay-up-till-3-sleep-in-till-10 schedule.  I don't like that schedule.  But the wee morning hours have been my usual blog-update time, and so hence no blogs lately.  

Ok so here is the Zeke update:  He is 4lbs 13oz!!  He is still on 3.5 on the vapotherm, but they may bump him back up to 4 because he has been breathing really fast and requiring more oxygen support.  We don't know exactly what's up with that; it could be that a portion of his

 lungs are colapsed again.  Hopefully that will correct itself soon.  Exciting news:  He's off contact precautions!!  YAY!! And He's wearing clothes!  He looks sooo darn cute, too.  Ok time for a million pictures!

Time with daddy.

These are the booties I made him.  They will fit for a while!

I am super frustrated with blogger right now.  Is anyone else having a hard time uploading pictures and getting the format right!??  GRR!