some random videos

Here are some videos... they're random but I had to take Brent to work today for my appointment and didn't want to not post anything.

Pictures, pictures and more pictures

Okay so here are a bunch of pictures! Some of them are old but I wanted to share them anyway. I hope you enjoy them!

Brynley's hair cracks us up! So much of it has fallen out. She's so bald on top she looks like a middle aged man! Ladies and gentle men, meet George Costanza!This is a really hard puzzle that Brent put together. He brought it home for both of us, but the second I saw that picture I was out. Puzzles, even in their easiest form frustrate me. For both of our mental health I just left this one to him! And if you can't tell from these pictures, most of it is BLACK!

Mariska sharing her magnet letters with Brynley...

"Mariska open your eyes!"

She's such a proud sister! Poor Brynley!

Making cookies at Christmas.

Okay, I have to agree that the pictures of me in the black shirt at Brent's school made me look quite decent. This one is a more accurate portrayal of my gurth. This is me putting my make-up on before we left for the hospital. Everyone there was all surprised I wore make-up... when else am I going to have so many pictures of me taken!? I couldn't not wear make-up!

Well that's our post of pictures. We'll stock up and post more soon!

What's Next... Bring It On

Well how is everyone? I hope you all are doing great! We are having quite a month. We finally seem to have gotten Brynley's reflux under control. She has a hard time every now and then but it's generally better after a dose of over the counter antacid and swaddling her. She loves to be swaddled and her arms pinned down. My parents hate how tight my sister and I wrap our babies, but Brynley loves it and her spastic arms don't wake her up!
So, now that the hours of crying and rocking is coming to an end, Mariska has the flu! She started to whine about not feeling well on Tuesday afternoon (Amanda and Joni if your kids get sick I'm SO SORRY) and she had a small fever that I didn't think much of. But on Wednesday she was much more miserable. Right around 5pm I took her temperature and it was 103.5... so I called the doctor and apparently I've been giving her the wrong Tylenol. I've been giving her infant's, and she can now have children's... anyway, so the doc said to alternate Tylenol and Motrin every 3 hours until I can take her to the office in the morning. Just before I gave her the Motrin I checked her temperature again... 104.2!!!! I freaked out! Mariska almost NEVER gets fevers, so this is REALLY high for her. I gave her the medicine right away and it went down after about an hour.
Medicine every 3 hours, plus feeding an infant ever 4 means I am on about 3 hours of sleep, collectively. Luckily the medicine let Mariska sleep through the night. So this morning we get her up and get Brynley all settled in her car seat and we're taking Brent to work, of course he's late and now won't have time to finish the paper work he needed to do... but anyway, we're taking Brent to work and we're at a red light when I hear Brynley puke all over herself. She's covered in vomit!! And being the clueless mom I am, I still have yet to learn to pack extra clothes in my bags. So we take her into Brent's school and simply take her clothes off, so she's not all wet.
Of course by the time we get to the doctor's office, without an appointment, Brynley is starving and screaming her head off. Everyone in the office was staring at me and taking pity. I'm standing there trying to check in and explain about why I don't have an appointment. Mariska is in her pajamas leaning against me with a continual whinny cry. Brynley is naked, screaming her head off while I try and feed her one handed and keep a blanket around her. Thankfully the receptionist signed the debit slip for the co-pay for me. I'm sure that's probably illegal. And another woman, who's had 4 kids carried Brynley's car seat into the waiting room for me.
The doctor calls in a prescription for Mariska but lets me know that 1) there isn't a generic for it. 2) It "may or may not work" because the flu going around can be resistant to it, just like it was resistant to the flu vaccine Mariska got last month. And 3) that even if it does work, all it will do is shorten the flu by a day, or two. So I head to Walmart, only to find out that it's $31.00!! Considering I just paid $25 for a co-pay and have to pay another next week for my 6 week check up, I passed on the prescription. Does that make me an abusive mother? That I'm willing to let her suffer an extra day to save $31.00? It simply wasn't worth the money for me, considering there was a good chance it wouldn't work anyway.
I'm just having a hard time, because with the way things are going, I'm never going to get a car! And I'm having issues with being so heavy and jiggly. That's the hardest thing about having a baby and not working out... the jiggles. I need to tone up very badly. But with 3 hours of sleep a night, I am not up for working out. I'm going to have to start though, because the ONLY shirts that fit me right now are winter shirts, and considering it's 80 degrees today, that's not a good thing.
Other then these things I've simply had to vent about, we're doing really well. Our car isn't leaking oil anymore. We think Walmart didn't close the oil tank all the way. Because it hasn't leaked since we got the oil changed last. Which they may have closed the bottom all the way in this last one, but they forgot to put on the lid!! We were driving up to Dallas and I smelled a bunch of gas. Brent checked under he hood and oil is EVERYWHERE because they left the lid off!! So we went to Auto Zone and got a new lid. Can you believe that?! Anyway, so our car is running good. It's warming up so we don't have to run the heat. Things are really good even though I'm complaining about today. It's just been one of those days! Thanks for listening!

Big shocker

Well, her test confirmed what I already knew. She's fine, except for really bad reflux. So we are increasing her perscription to a whole pill and when they are done we're trying zantac, because the perscription is so expensive. And if that doesn't work we're going to try Infamil AR, which is a formula designed for relux. Apparently it's a formula that thickens once in the stomach so it doesn't go back up so easily. We're going to try the medicines first before buying more expensive formula. Although I think the formula may be a good idea because the "testing solution/formula" for her x-ray was really thick and chalky and she was perfectly happy after eating that. But we'll still see how the medicines work first. I'm so glad we were right and that there isn't something worse going on!

Here we go again

Okay so we're back to the screaming. I've called the doc and they are scheduling that "Upper GI" test that will show us how bad the reflux is, or if it's infact something else. We go to do the test on Thursday morning. She can't eat for 5 hours before the test. Our poor baby, she'll be screaming her head off. I sure hope it helps get her better though!

Room for improvement?

Well, things with Brynley seem to have calmed down. She's still on her prescription and we've switched to the other formula and we're giving her an over the counter antacid before each feeding. There have been two times she's been asleep and randomly started screaming, but she stopped as soon as I picked her up. But luckily there haven't been any instances like before where she would just scream for an hour after each feeding. I was actually able to feed her and get her back to sleep within 45 minutes last night! So we're just hoping this keeps up and that she outgrows it soon.
Poor Mariska is so bored! I've just been so tired, we've done nothing all week. Well actually we did make cookies the other day, but that's it. She's taken it like a champ though and has been really good. I hate admitting we've really just been hanging out in our pajamas all week. Our house is a complete disaster and the wet clothes in the washer have been sitting for hours.
Taking a good look at myself I realize there is seriously no where to go from here but up! I hate the idea that I'm such a slug. Honestly I struggle with laziness most of the time, without a new baby and 4 hours sleep, but I hate it. There are a lot of days I actually think to myself, "man I wish we could drink coffee." It'd be so nice to get synthetic energy.
This is why I have a hard time with New Years. The idea of resolutions is great, but it's overwhelming for me and I end up mostly just feeling worse about myself. I have such a huge list of things I need to work on and I hate only picking one or two because they all are important to me. And it makes me feel even more pathetic that some of my goals would include simple things everyone else does normally, like actually getting dressed every day or flossing. Wow I sound like a bum!
Here is an example of my resolutions:
- Restart reading scriptures everyday
- Remember to say my prayers
- Stop eating junk
- Restart working out
- Manage money better, save more money
- Keep my house cleaner
- Plan more structured activities for Mariska
- Update and keep up my journal
- scrapbook, update baby books and make our family dvd scrapbooks

I could keep going. The hard part about the working out is starting the routine. I need to work out to battle my laziness and have more energy... but I'm too tired and lazy! I have to work up the energy to DO it, in order to GET energy. It's so weird. And frustrating.
So anyway, instead of listing and worrying about each of those goals I'm basically going to sum them all up into one big resolution. So, my New Year's resolution this year: To not be so pathetic! I think that covers everything from getting dressed to being a busy bee. I'll letcha know how things go! I'm starting my goal tomorrow. Brent is taking the night shift with Brynley tonight so I can sleep ALL night!! First time since she was born, I'm so excited!!

Pictures

Well folks, the soy formula didn't help. And I've also found small amounts of blood in her stool. Our poor baby! The doctor thinks that she is having a hard time breaking down proteins. Apparently milk and soy have the same basic proteins, soy just doesn't have lactose. So anyway, now we have to run out and buy Carnation Good Start formula because that has the proteins pre-broken down. And we also need to give her Malox before feeding her to help reduce the reflux more, that's on top of her prescription. So, Brent is going to get that all after work today. And if doing those things don't help, we have a test we have to get done at the hospital scheduled for Friday morning. It's a test to see if she just has horribly bad reflux that we can't see, since she doesn't spit up. If the test comes back that it's not the reflux, then I have no idea what it could be or what we'll do. This is pretty stressful for Brent and me, it's hard enough having our baby scream in agony after every feeding, but the financial costs of what we need to do are adding up. I'm just praying that this formula will work and we won't have to get that test done on Friday, who knows how much that will cost! You've just gotta love our health care system... her prescription alone WITH insurance was $76.00 for a month supply. It was $150.00 without insurance!! 150 bucks for a months worth of antacid, that should be illegal. Anyway, without getting into politics further, I'll just leave it at the idea that we won't be getting that medicine again and will try other options. Please keep Brynley in your prayers that she'll get better soon!
On a lighter note, we finally have pictures!! Brent put them up at work today for me, so I can type and post from home.
This is a lovely sweater Brent's Grandmother sent Mariska for her birthday. It's really pretty and she looks so good in it!

Even though she does have pretty big feet, the camera angle of this picture makes them much bigger and I can't help but laugh at it.

Mariska wanted to be wrapped up just like Brynley (wanting to be a baby too) needless to say it didn't last long, she'd rather move her arms.

Mariska was so cute last night!! Her Curious George doll was her baby and she did everything to take care of him perfectly! When putting on the diaper she grabbed both his feet at once and lifted him up, just like I do for Brynley.

Tummy Time!

This is Brent as Santa, he and his coworker made it look alright after all. He had a great time. He said the kid's faces were priceless and he's definitely do it again next year if they asked!

That's it for us... I'll update on Brynley in the comment section tonight and/or tomorrow!

Or Not

Okay, so Brynley has started the screaming thing with the formula as well. (See post below) It's so strange. She just starts screaming when she's full and screams off and on for about 45 minutes or so afterwards. It's so hard to get her to sleep because she just doubles up in pain and screams. We're still wondering if it's her reflux, but she's not spitting up. She hardly ever spits up and that's big indicator of reflux, plus she doesn't just arch her back as they do with relfux but she'll bring her knees up as though her belly hurts. So now that she's started this with formula Brent ran out and bought some soy formula, which Mariska was on because she has blood in her spit up, but acted fine... so maybe Brynley has milk issues too. We'll see, her next feeding is in the middle of the night so I'll see how things go then, I'll put an update in the comments section.

Recent Happenings

Hello all! It's been so long since I've posted. I was going to blog yesterday at Brent's work and post a whole bunch of pictures, but yesterday was a particularly nasty day and when I got there the power was out and wasn't expected back on anytime soon. So now I'm just going to type a post without pictures until we can get some up.
The last three weeks have been interesting. They have flown by but also crawled at the same time! Isn't it strange how time can feel both ways sometimes? Brent went back to work yesterday and now I'm on my own with the two girls during the day. I'm a bit intimidated by that but hopefully Brynley will start sleeping more at night soon and I'll have more energy to handle everything better.
Mariska has had a couple difficult days since Brynley was born, but things are getting better. She's wanting to be both a baby and a "big girl" and sometimes she gets pretty emotional since she can't have it both ways. Brent was wonderful with her over his Christmas break though, I don't know what I would have done without him home!
This last Sunday was also Mariska's first week in Sunbeams at church! She's obviously the youngest one in her class, since she's been 3 for less then a month. She has a hard time with the concept of reverence and listening to the teacher. I'm just hoping the other kids can be good examples and she'll learn from what they do.
Brynley is such a good baby! She's had some problems with acid reflux but we're getting that taken care of alright. For the last little while she's had a really hard time and just been screaming horribly off and on for a while after every feeding. I thought it was the reflux and that the medication we've gotten wasn't working. But Brent gave her a bottle of formula at church and he noticed that she didn't have any problems afterwards. So after a couple more feedings with breast milk and problems with screaming, we tried giving her formula again and she was fine. So we've figured out that she has problems with breast milk and we're switching to bottle feeding now.
The last two weeks with her screaming have been hard and I'm so happy and thankful that Brent paid close attention at church. The last 24 hours of her on formula have been so nice! She is such a calm baby. She really doesn't cry at all on formula and just likes to look around. We've also gotten one or two "coos" out of her. At her doctor's appointment yesterday she was 8 pounds 15 ounces.
Well, that's about it for now. I'll post pictures soon!