Irritated....oh and puppies

I am sooo irritated with myself right now. I decided that it was best to go see Ty's current pediatrician who is now 30 plus miles away because he needed his well check and he has been having some issues with being tired/exhausted. Ty has been just tired and wore out for about a month now. This is sooo not normal for my 5 year old. He gets tired walking around the zoo, he begs to go to bed at 6 pm (yes I know, some of you would love kids that beg to go to bed) and he has had a few days where he just isn't awake very long, say 5 hours. So, my theory is he is having some asthma issues, ones that might effect his lung function. I take him for his well check and am going to bring this up. We really get started out on the wrong foot. The nurse does a vision check, Ty says he can't see the shapes beyond the first line with his left eye (he is likely left eye dominant as he is left handed). The nurse moves him up and lets him looks with both eyes to see if he knows the shapes, asks him a couple on each line and he knows the shapes (he knew them last year too, imagine that). He moves back and is again asked the shapes in the same order and he says what they are, not great but okay. Then we switch eyes (to his right eye which is likely not his dominant eye) and he is asked the same shapes, he can see the top one. He can not see anything beyond that, and I asked him, do you not know what it is or you can't see it? He says "I can't see it". The nurse at that point labels him uncooperative and moves us into the room. I am a bit perturbed, Ty was not uncooperative, he said he couldn't see....my son is above all else, laid back and happy, he is not going to just not do something or stop cooperating, that just isn't his nature. So we move on to him being tired, the ped listens to his lungs and tells me he is fine. I tell him everything that has gone on with Ty being tired and not having a lot of energy and such and basically he chalks it up to Seasonal Affect Disorder, which really would be okay except I live in south Texas and it is sunny every day and in the 60's. Ty plays/goes outside everyday. The ped says Ty is always grumpy. My kid is maybe grumpy for a minute and a half when he is mad about something but that rarely happens. He is just a happy guy. So, I have no idea what is going on with him, I just don't think it is the season....I do think he may be not breathing as well as he should, oh and we did not get refills on asthma meds, because it can't possibly be his asthma.

So, on a lighter note, here are puppies. I LOVE these little dogs, I know they are going to be BIG DOGS, but they are great and they love kids and are great all the way around. Ty is having so much fun with them. They were even worth bathing 3 crazy dogs in the tub!!

This is Sadie with Ty :)



And this is our Lucy girl

Sadie eating, this dog rules the roost where food is concerned, the smallest but definitely the most likely to eat first

Lucy outside playing

Can Sadie be any cuter?? This dog is gonna be a big girl!!

So, I promised some pics and here goes. I am adding some from Christmas, T's birthday and our new home. We are doing good, T has me a little concerned because he seems abnormally tired lately. I have an appt for him on Thursday for his 5 year check and will ask about his tiredness then, I think it may be due to his asthma and maybe he isn't getting as much O2 as he should but thats just my theory. I will update Thursday after we go to his doc.

This is him on Christmas Eve in his pirate costume


I got him a digital camera for Christmas, he was soo excited.


T and his half brother J at the zoo on his bday.

Our new house :)

Our new family members

We got not one but 2 new puppies yesterday. This was mostly my fault as I really wanted a boxer puppy or boxer mix and F just really wanted a bigger dog. So, we went out to see a couple of dogs, we looked on craiglist because we didn't want to buy and breeded dog or go to a pet store and we were either going to pic up an unwanted puppy or go to the humane society. The first puppy we saw just wasn't what we were looking for, it looked like a good dog and the parents were certainly good dogs but the puppy was going to be small to medium and really F wanted a "big dog", so we decided no on that one, we actually do have a little will power against the cuteness of puppy-hood. So, we went to see the second puppy, I was pretty sure we were going to get this puppy as their were pics posted of it and it was cute and female and is likely going to be a med-big dog. I told F it was his decision whether we wanted this one or would wait for another. He wanted the dog, he liked the father dog and the puppy was cute. So, we took said puppy home with us and named her Lucy. Then I sat down and refreshed one of the websites I was looking for puppies on, and up pops a "boxer-shepherd mix" and the cutest lil puppy picture. I looked at F and said "can we PLEASE go get this puppy", I wanted it and wanted it to be MY dog and truly if we had seen her first we would have had just one puppy, though we do love Lucy. We went and picked up the second puppy, she is sooo cute!! I think she is going to end up being T's dog though, he LOVES her and she is all over him. We love dogs and wanted at least one bigger dog, in truth had we not found Sadie (the boxer-shepherd pup), we eventually would have gotten a boxer mix type dog.
We are all moved in the new house...lol....well sort of. We have all our stuff here but are still working on getting it all out and moved in. T is so much happier here, he has gotten a lot of time out in the yard and is really looking forward to summer when we can swim. He is also loving being outside with the puppies, he loves that they will chase him. He also is enjoying having room to actually spread his toys out and play with them, we were a little room challenged in our apartment and here he has room to set up his train tracks and actually play with them. I am loving that we don't have toys all over the house and that we have plenty of room for all of our stuff. We had my bff over last night and got to play rockband and the wii for a bit. F made homemade chicken cordon-blue (I know that must be spelled wrong) and it was soooo good.
Thats about it for now, I know I need to get on posting the pics :) I will get some up tomorrow.

Your votes needed for small business owners

I only have a second so I am just going to put this out there and hope that you all will do the right thing and go vote. There is a new law coming into effect on Feb 10, 2009. I have tried to read as much as I can about it but am having a hard time getting down to the absolute specifics. I do know this law will likely close a lot of small business owners down. It requires that all products for children under 12 be tested for lead and other toxins before they are sold. Now, this overall is not a bad thing, we want our kids to be safer. The problem with the law is that is a huge sweeping law that is going to effect places like Goodwill, Thrift Stores and those that make clothing/crafts for kids. It will keep you from buying used clothing and toys for your kids no matter where the clothing/toys were made. It will make old clothing/toys from your kids landfill material no matter what the condition of those are or whether or not they really pose a threat. The type of testing being asked for is fine for large manufacturers but not so cost effective for a small business owner. Please take some time, read the link and vote if you feel the law needs reform. I am all for better safety measures but I think we need to make sure we target the things we know are a problem and not just kill off tons of small businesses.

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/save_handmade_toys_from_the_cpsia

Make up your own mind and help out if you feel you should.

Jen

Ahhhh, the New Year!!! But first, it was T's birthday yesterday, YAY for being 5. I am having a hard time seeing my little guy, my baby, becoming a little boy. He is such a sweetheart. We celebrated by going to the zoo yesterday. We had such a good time. It was T, my nephew J and my mom and I. T took his new digital camera that he got for Christmas and took a ton of pictures. We walked all over the zoo and it was a beautiful day to be outside and running around. T had a great time and was so happy with his birthday suprise. We aren't having a party for him until we move, which we are doing this weekend.

Our house is a total disaster in the midst of packing everything up. Our Christmas stuff came down the day after Christmas so we could start packing. I am loving the house we are moving into and I can't wait til we are set up there. It has wooden floor and tile floors in all the common areas. It also has the pool in the backyard, and having the yard itself is a huge plus for T.

Our Christmas was good but very busy. F went and got his daughter and her sister (not F's child). The younger sister H is seven and that was really hard, and I doubt we will have her over again, at least not for Christmas. She only wanted to play with whatever T had in his hands at the time and was really loud and spent the whole visit lying. It was a lot to handle and took away from some of the joy I had at seeing T so very happy and having a good time (until his toy was snatched from his hands). We spent Christmas Eve at my mom's house. It was very busy with my whole family there but a lot of fun. Then we came home and opened presents here, we tell Santa he can visit us early, he has such a busy schedule, you know. We didn't do a lot Christmas day, we had stuffed pork and salad and mac n cheese for dinner, it was really good. T was so happy with his Christmas, we had really paired down how much we got this year as it seems like he is often overwhelmed with gifts and this year it was really perfect. He did get a Wii from my mom and that has been a huge success. I do reccomend this for anyone with younger children. I am sure it is good with bigger kids too as we have a good time with it but there are not many games really geared to the 5-7 crowd with the PS and Xbox games and the Wii really seems to be a good fit for that age range, at least with the games he got for his.

I will post some new pics soon of both our Christmas and T's birthday :)

Christmas Snow and the start of my journey

T thinks that x-mas only comes when it snows. He says the rain just turns to snow. I have tried to explain to him how it has to be cold and then there has to be moisture, enough to actually snow for us to get snow, and then that even though it "could" snow, it likely won't or if it did, it would only fall from the sky and not accumulate. I just hope I can get across we are having x-mas, whether it snows or not.

I remember the day my sis asked if I would adopt him, it came totally out of left field for me. She was in her room, she might have been crying, if she was, she was trying to hide it. She asked if I would be interested in adopting T (she was 3 months pregnant at the time, so really early on). I told her yes I would be interested but that she needed to think about this and make the decision that was right for her. I didn't want her to give him up if she didn't want to or if it wasn't going to be the right thing for her. I realized immediately that this would be the hardest thing she would ever do, and I wasn't sure at first this was something she really wanted. She is my sister, so no matter what, I was going to be there for her. And I was going to love T no matter what, because no matter what he was going to be special. Her son, J and I have always been very close, I imagined that no matter what A decided, T and I would be close. So, I went with her to appointments and never once did she waver on her question to me, she assumed my yes was it and he was my son. When the first test they did came back and showed markers for downs syndrome, she asked me to call the doc and talk to them about it, she asked if I wanted the amnio. I did not, if she wanted me to raise T, there was nothing that would change my mind.
A's boyfriend, T's bio-dad was around some too, he was very pro me adopting T. So much so that I think maybe he told A he wouldn't help her with T, he already had 4 other bio kids that he was not supporting in anyway. He is my least favorite person on this earth, also a story for another time. A is very aware of the programs to help mom's parent their children, she helped a friend try to keep her kids when CPS was involved, she knew the ins and outs of getting assistance with daycare, WIC, food stamps. This is something she decided to do, because she felt she couldn't parent T, she wasn't really at the time parenting J, my parents were, it wasn't a matter of not knowing how to get help or that there was help out there, she just could not parent T and wanted him in our family no matter what.
My sis is a little shy and less likely to speak up for herself then she would be to tell me what is bothering her, what she needs. I did try to make sure when she needed something, someone at least listened to her, and this included a little bit of me yelling at nurse in the hospital for her but that story is for another time. There were a lot of ups and downs over the six months A was pregnant after she asked me to parent T. We were there together through all of them. Now, almost 5 years later, we are closer than we have ever been. And we both love a little boy named T and would do anything for him.

Gingerbread houses and good weekend

I did not realize when I started the gingerbread house tonight that it would be an ORDEAL. I guess it should have crossed my mind that we were going to have to WAIT for the sides to dry a little and the roof to dry and I keep hearing the little voice next to me, "is it dry now?"...lol. I hope it will turn out okay and stay together at least long enough to be photographed. I am not creative in the least but I do try, and that should count, right?

We had a good weekend. A took T and J to six flags and they went sledding. T loved it, wanted to go again but apparently the line was rather long. T then spent the night with J and A and my folks and F and I were able to have a quiet night home together, it doesn't happen very often. T had a great time, he loves spending time with A and J and with my parents. And its nice for him to be with someone who loves him as much as I do, A surely loves him as much as me. I don't ever worry when he is with her, I know he is loved and cared for. I do appreciate the relationship we have forged for the love of T, and it makes me happy to know he is so loved.

A, J, T, my mom and I went shopping on Sunday. T needed some new pants and warm jammies. It was fun for us all to get out together. T and J have such a great time together, despite the 7/8 year age difference. J is so nice to his little brother. And T just idolizes his big brother. We were able to get T jeans and jammies, he loves his new Christmas jammies and immediately put them on when we got home, at almost 8 pm. We are excited about Christmas coming up and I need to think of some things to do over the next few weekends to make them special. I think we will go to sea world and maybe 6 flags too, F and I need to go see all the lights and have a little fun, so we will likely take T and have some family time. We also have a few birthdays coming up, my neice D is turning 7 and T's best friend is turning 5.

So much to do before Christmas, I am sure I will wrapping presents right up to the time we are ready to open them...lol.