Milestones

Aaryn has reached so many milestones in such a short period of time. She can now roll over both ways, sit unassisted, "army" crawl (all over the house), and even pull up on things to stand herself up. I'm going to work on getting pictures of this today to put on the blog. She is growing up so so fast and it's making me a little sad. I am so proud of her though.

Dear Sleep,

It's been a while since I've seen you. Thank you for visiting my baby and me. Make yourself comfortable and stay a while, because when you are here, everyone feels better.

Love Your Biggest Fan,
Shalonda

LOL! Aaryn has slept through the night for FOUR days in a row. We both feel so much better now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this keeps up.

Thank You, God!

Turn from evil and do good; then you will dwell in the land forever. For the LORD loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. They will be protected forever.

Psalm 37:27-28

My husband's job is about an hour away from where we live. He usually gets off work between 1 and 2am. Monday morning around 2:15 am, I was awakened from a terrible feeling that something was wrong. My husband wasn't home yet, so I called him on his cell phone. He told me that he had fell asleep at the wheel and had run the car into a guardrail on the highway. He walked away from the accident without a single scratch. Thank God! Things could have been much worse and I could be without a husband; my girls without a father. This confirms the power of God, prayer, and faithfulness.

Thanksgiving (Late)

Man...I've really slacked in keeping this blog updated. It seems that the days are getting shorter and shorter. Both girls have been sick over the past few weeks, but hopefully, that bug has left our home for good. Between taking care of the girls, working, and the Thanksgiving holiday, I've had very little time to spend on the computer.

Thanksgiving was great! If I could rewind time, I think I'd go back to this past Thursday and do Thanksgiving again. Thanksgiving really makes me reflect on all the things that I am thankful for. Here are my top 5:

1. My family. My family means the world to me. I am blessed to have such a wonderful husband and two beautiful daughters. I'm thankful too for the rest of my family who are always there when we need them.

2. My friends. Though they are few, I am thankful for those who have been true friends to me and my family.

3. My job. I know I gripe and complain and don't look forward to going to work everyday, but I am thankful to have a decent job. It's not hard work and it allows me to help take care of our family and give my girls a good life.

4. My health. I am relatively healthy and I am very thankful for that.

5. My upbringing. I am thankful for person that I have become. My mom raised my brother and me as a single mom. She taught me to be kind, honest, and obedient. From her, I've learned how to be a good mother to my children.

There other things that I am thankful for, but there are too many to list. We should all be thankful for people and the things in our lives everyday...not just on Thanksgiving.

Since my husband and I have been together, we've had Thanksgiving dinner twice (with both families). We had dinner with my husband's family at 1pm. We all get together at his grandmother's house and everyone brings a dish to make up the meal. This year, we were responsible for the deviled eggs and drinks. Everything was good. I had to force myself not to go back for seconds because we still had another dinner to attend.

We had dinner with my family (at my aunt's house) around 4pm. We were responsible for the mac and cheese and a dessert. I found a great recipe for pumpkin cheescake and it turned out really delicious. The mac and cheese was good, but it could have been better. I really stuffed myself. I think I gained at least 10lbs, but Thanksgiving only comes once a year. I can always work on losing the weight tomorrow...or next week...or at the beginning of the year. Ha!

6 Months and 1 Day ago...

I gave birth to my sweet baby girl, Aaryn! The time is passing by much too quickly. My baby is growing up before my eyes. I googled development milestones for 6-month olds and found this list:

Begins to speak single (hard) consonants, like "dada" (sorry mom!). NOT YET
Rolls over both ways (front to back and back to front). YEP!
The baby will begin to look for a toy dropped out of sight. YEP!
Has no head lag when pulled to a sitting position. YEP!
Begins to "tripod" (sits with one hand on the ground for support) and soon will begin to sit without support. YEP! (can sit for a short period without support)
Continues to grasp and mouth objects, but now can transfer small objects from one hand to another. YEP!
Six-month-old babies begin to rake at small objects but cannot pick them up yet because their finger coordination is not yet precise enough. I don't know. Too scared to give her small objects
Shows displeasure with loss of a toy. YEP!
Is able to recognize each parent and may even begin to show some stranger anxiety. YEP! (she prefers Mommy)
Makes attempts to feed himself or herself. YEP!
Smiles, laughs, squeals and begins to imitate sounds. YEP!
Can be content in a playpen for a while playing with one or two toys. YEP!
Can bear weight on his or her legs when held in a standing position (no, it will not make him or her bowlegged). YEP!

She's even scooting and turning to navigate towards objects. I predict she'll be crawling pretty soon.

As far as her growth rate, she has more than doubled her birthweight and she's grown at least 5 inches since birth.

I'm glad that she's reaching all of these milestones, but sad too. My little baby isn't so little anymore (sigh). They grow up waaaaay too fast.

Our Day Yesterday

Awful, Awful, Awful! In an earlier post, I mentioned that both of the girls had colds and that they were getting better. Well, Aaryn got better. Cadence's cough came back and refused to go away. So after almost two weeks of a persistent cough, I called the doctor's office to make an appointment. They told me to have her there by 5:00 and she could see the doctor. Perfect. So I got off work at 4:00 and headed to the daycare to get the girls. When I get there, Cadence's teacher tells me that she's been complaining about not feeling well and that she had a temperature of 99.6. I inform her that she has a doctor's appointment at 5:00, so hopefully we'll get to the bottom of this.

We get to the doctor's office around 4:40. I know that it is packed because there are no parking spaces. I see someone leaving, so I park in their spot, unload the girls and head in. I was right. It is slam packed! We sign in and sit and wait, and wait, and wait. Cadence is getting hungry and Aaryn is sleepy and becoming very fussy at this point. We finally get to see the doctor. He runs down a list of questions about her symptoms, which I patiently answer. He then examines her and tell me that she has pneumonia on her right side. My heart dropped. I felt so terrible that I had let it get that bad. He also said that since it had been going on for so long, as a precaution, he wanted me to take her to the hospital to get a chest x-ray to make sure it hadn't gotten down further in her chest. Why didn't I just take her to the doctor when she first started coughing or even after it lasted for a week? Why!? He expressed to me that it didn't sound too bad, but just wanted to be sure then faxed a perscription for antibiotics to the pharmacy.

It was 6:15, we were hungry, and I was tired (I hadn't even been home yet), but decided to head on to the hospital right then instead of putting it off until the morning. We were all getting very hungry at this point so we went through McDonald's drive-thru, then headed to the hospital. I manage to scarf my food down on the way while Cadence worked on her fries.

When we get to the hospital, we have to check-in through the emergency room because Outpatient Services closed at 5. Cadence starts on her chicken nuggets and I hand Aaryn a bottle while I'm filling out all of the forms. We get checked in and the x-ray technician (who was AWESOME) comes to do her x-rays. Cadence does great with following directions when getting her x-rays so we're in and out.

By now it is 7:00, so I figure that the perscription should be filled by now, so we head to the pharmacy. I find out that they never received the fax from the doctor's office. Disappointed, I call the office, but guess what....THEY'RE CLOSED. Ugghhhhh! We go home without her medicine and she's still coughing. After all of that, I still felt like nothing was accomplished. Yes, I know what the problem is now, but what good is knowing when I don't have the medicine she needs to get better?

To summarize today, Cadence stayed with my mother while I came on to work and John went to school. I called the doctor's office as soon as they opened and told them that I needed them to resend the prescription to the pharmacy. After
several back and forth phone calls, my mother was finally able to get the medicine.

I learned a few valuable lessons from this experience.

1.) NEVER wait over a week for a cough to go away. A persistent cough could be the sign of a more serious condition, which it clearly says on the back of every bottle of cough syrup out there.

2.) Just because your kid is jumping around and acting like their normal selves almost 100% of the time doesn't mean that they're not sick and they don't just say that they're sick to get attention..well not all of the time.

3.) Always ask for a hard copy of the perscription especially if it's closing time for the doctor's office. Fax machines aren't always reliable.

4.) Grandparents are Godsends. I'm convinced God made grandparents so that the parents don't lose their minds. NEVER take them for granted. Thank you mama for all you do. I love you!!

Halloween

Halloween this year was a blast. The girl's school had a Hallelujah Party on Friday with food, games, hayrides, face painting, and of course candy. It was lots of fun and Cadence had a really good time playing with all of her friends. On Saturday, my mom and I took the girls, dressed as Ariel and Flounder, out to a couple of church sponsored trunk-or-treats and a few friend's houses. Cadence really racked up on candy (mostly from my best friends house). I got lots of compliments on their costumes. Here are a few pictures that I managed to get of them.

My little Ariel

My sweet Flounder

The stash