A Life Less Traveled: May 2009

Charlotte took some time to smell the Tulips

It has been awhile since I updated my blog and I have good reason....OK maybe not but when you have a 1 1/2 yr old who lives and breaths to play outside then what is a mama to do? So that is pretty much where we spend our afternoons. The morning I try and get the house in order and get my "chores" done so we can spend the afternoons outside. I usually leave the kitchen for the afternoon because Charlotte can play outside while I do that because it is easy to keep an eye on her from the kitchen. So anyway I know everyone is dying to know what we have been up to..... Yeah right....but I am going to make you suffer through it anyway. This is going to be a long one!

This is the shirt everyone hates except for me and Charlotte. What is so wrong with it?

OK so we left you last time hanging about Charlotte's doctor appointment. We went back and found out that she does in fact have a auto immune deficiency. It is called Selective deficiency of IgA. It is nothing really serious It sounds really serious but in reality it isn't. Basically she has a low level of a protein in her blood that helps prevent infections like colds, sinus infections, bronchitis,diarrhea, etc. She can get these things easier then other kids but once she does have them she has all the antibodies to fight off the infection. Our pediatrician said most kids that have this either have a lot of symptoms or they have no symptoms at all, and so far Charlotte really hasn't had any symptoms. She was only sick once this winter with the flu and we all were sick so she didn't have a fighting chance on that one. She may eventually outgrow it and we also found that it is passed down through families. I am guessing it is my side of the family because Jim is never sick and my side of the family there always seems to be something wrong with someone. I am going to be tested just to see if I am right. So that is what we found. She gained a pound and a half back and the doctor said she wasn't as worried about her weight. She just wants me to try getting her to eat more often. She called it "failure to thrive". Nothing like making you feel like a horrible mother when they say that:) I have tried everything to get her to eat. She just picks at her food and really will only eat a few bites of anything and then she just plays with the rest. I have tried everything to get her interested in actually eating, but nothing works. She is to "busy" to eat. We stop everything and sit at the table to eat, even snacks, but she still won't eat more then a little at a time. I am not going to worry myself to death about it. I am just more aware now of how much she is eating. So that is the gist of it. She is fine and so far she has not had any problems with it. She will be going to see the immunologist sometime in the next two weeks. I will update when we get back from the appointment.

Last month Jim came to me and said he was getting some chicken eggs from a guy at work and he was going to hatch them and raise chickens. I told him was "absolutely insane, and that he was not going to hatch chickens and raise them because I would end up being the one to raise them", and I do not want to raise chickens. Our neighbor has raised chickens every year we have been here and they are the worst animals I can think of. First off they smell, and I don't mean they she kind of smell bad. They stink! Chicken crap is disgusting and the smell will seriously make you want to cut your nose off and stuff the remaining holes with cotton. I think you get the point that they stink! Second they are noisy, especially if you have a rooster. Our neighbor had a rooster for one year. Every morning at the ass crack of dawn that stupid bird would start in with the coooock a dooddlle do crap. He is very lucky I didn't go over a butcher the stupid thing myself. So that is smelly, noisy, what else could there possibly be? OK # 3 They are stupid! That is a big one. Gunner (Our dog) is almost as dumb as a chicken so there is no doubt in my mind that Jim will set up the chicken factory and Gunner will spend his days trying to figure out how to kill one of them so he can chew on it. And last but certainly not least is the fact that Jim will not take care of these smelly, noisy stupid birds, I will end up doing it because of his work schedule, and I do not want to raise chickens. So that was what I told Jim when he said that he wanted to do this. I thought that was the end of the conversation. The next week I went down into our basement and I was looking for something and I hear this"" cheep cheep"" at first I thought it was a mouse. as I started to look around I noticed a very bright light coming out of an old diaper box. Well can you guess what was in the box? Oh not "A" chicken, 11 chickens and there were three more in the incubator next to the box. I am not sure what made me more upset the chickens or the fact that Jim thought it was OK to put a heat lamp into a cardboard box.Nothing like burning your house down over chickens! So as of now the chickens are still here. I am hoping they will be going away soon, but I have a feeling they are here to stay. At least Charlotte get a kick out of them. I let her hold them and she usually drops them when they move. They are cute right now, but I am certain they will not stay that way and I know one of them is just dying to be an early riser. Oh how I love my husband and his brilliant ideas!

The black "Chicken" of the family. The only black chicken all the rest were light brown.

My friend Devin just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who she named Sydney. She allowed me to take some pictures of her so I could practice my baby photography skills :) OK I am no where near professional or even semi professional but I am learning and really enjoying it. It was a lot of fun, but it would have been a lot better if I had a sitter for Charlotte, and if the light had been a little better. (It was a rainy cloudy day) I had a lot of fun though and I learned a lot. I have been doing a lot of reading and I am taking a photoshop class. My niece Erin gave me a copy of Photoshop Cs2 and Photoshop Lightroom so it has been a lot of fun learning how to enhance my photos. I am finding that I really enjoy doing this and it gives me something to work that is just for me. Since Charlotte was born I don't do a lot of stuff for myself so this is something that is just for me. Here are a few of the pictures I took. Devin also has a two and half year old little boy Nickolas. They all came over last week and Charlotte and Nic played together. It was really nice and Charlotte had a blast. They rode together on the powerwheels ATV. It was so cute. Charlotte held onto Nic around his waste and he was so good with her on the back, but he wanted to drive fast so he asked for her to get off and then he rode around the yard and almost crashed on several occasions. It was pretty funny. He is a sweet kid and Charlotte loves playing with him. It was a good day.

Sydney

This last weekend we had a lot of fun. It started off with a trip to the greenhouse. Charlotte loves going there. She loves all the flowers and she especially loves the the little wagon she gets to ride in. I really need to buy that kid a wagon. I keep saying that but I would like to find a used one. A brand new wagon is like 70 dollars. Crazy! SO anyway then we came home and Jim built the raised garden boxes and we planted our garden. We are going to have a really nice garden this year. WE have a really nice selection of veggies and fruits. We even got a nice apple tree. That probably won't produce much if anything this year or next but when it does it will be nice. It is a honey crisp apple tree. Those are really good apples. After we got that done we had to rush to get to Laurie and Herbie's daughter Sylvia's graduation party. She graduated from college and is going to be an elementary school teacher. We didn't get to stay long but I got some nice pictures of the three of them together and we met a cute little puppy who's name was Molly. Charlotte didn't really care for her though. She has a little to jumpy and she nipped at her a few times. SHE was just being a puppy but Charlotte didn't understand and really didn't care. We came home and had a relaxing evening outside and finished up the garden. I planted some flowers out front and then it was off to bed. I think that should cover it. It has been busy but we have had a lot of fun the past few weeks. The weather is getting nicer and we are spending every minute possible outside. I will try to keep this more up to date in the future. That way you won't have to read until your eyes burn.