It's May Already Yikes!

I can't believe is May already.  To make matters worse it's May 8th already! I totally missed May 1-7th. Weird. How could I totally miss out on a whole week?  Well, it's actually easy to do if you are a stay at home mom with a thousand things going on all at the same time.   First, my husband and I have been clearing out our home of clutter and this has been going on since March.  I came up with the idea in early March to clean out the house of all unneeded junk, repaint our house and reclaim the inside of our home that has been lost to 9 years of two kids, 3 dogs, and all the stuff that we never got rid of from before we got married and had kids.  Yes, that's right - we still have things from before we go married and had kids! Why do we still have this stuff? I actually do not know why we still have it but we do. It is boxes of college textbooks, class notes, photos from college parties, letters, old pay stubs, newspapers articles from my hometown paper with whatever social mention of me from high school, etc. My mom saved that stuff for me and when my husband and I got married she boxed up all the stuff that was in my bedroom at home and sent it off with me.  My husband has all his stuff from before we got married too - boxes of random photographs he took from a time when he actually had time to go to cool and interesting places to take beautiful photos.  So here we are 11 years of marriage, almost 9 years later in the current house and we are feeling overwhelmed by all the stuff that has taken over the house.  We have boxes of two small kids clothes,  boxes of kids too small shoes, boxes of our previous lives from before kids, boxes of random things that don't belong and me having no clue how to organize it all without help.  Oh, yes and did I mention that my house does not have a basement or any decent storage whatsoever.  Augh.  Add all this stuff together and it's annoying - and cluttered and makes me want to move to a larger home with more storage.  

Our current home is 2700 sq ft.  It should be enough room for us but it is not.  We have 4 people, 3 dogs, a garage full of 4 mountain bikes, 2 road bikes, kids bikes, bike trailers, large coolers, kids scooters, bike parts, tools, etc.  Only one vehicle can fit in the garage, which is a total downer.  The other vehicle is a Ford Supercrew F150 that we bought because it's great for hauling mountain bikes, fits the whole family on road trips and can haul whatever we need especially when it's time to repair or replace our sad looking fence.   And guess what? The truck will not fit in the garage! Can you believe it? Here we are living in TEXAS for crying out loud, which is a truck driving state, and for some idiotic reason the home builder did not make the garage long enough to park a truck in the garage. So, with that in mind my husband and I decided that we would not move unless we find a garage that the truck can fit in and it's a 3 car garage.  Well guess what we happen to find? Purely by accident we found a house in our neighborhood that is for sale.  It has a 3 car garage that our truck will fit in with room to spare, 4 full bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a bonus room with a bathroom (ours doesn't have that) and a ton of storage built throughout the house.  Finally the perfect house! Yay!  The only problem is the following. 1.  We are still cleaning out the clutter from our house.  2.  Our house needs to be painted inside and out.  2. Our fence is barely standing.  3.  Our house is totally not ready to be listed on the market yet.  4.  Our House is not ready to be for sale at all!  5.  Did I mention that the house for sale is perfect! It has everything that our current home does not have - 3 car garage, a guest room with a full bath, a bathroom for both kids, a separate office, large closets in all bedrooms, a  beautiful fence, and a large parking area (no more parking on the street) yay!  If we want to make an offer on this house the only way to do it is so borrow the maximum amount from my husbands 401K and get an additional mortgage for the additional amount so we can put in a solid offer without a contingency.  There is a current offer on the house with an open contingency. So, if we want to bust our rear to get all of our ducks in a row technically we would get the house.  The owner needs to sell the house ASAP and wants an offer with no contingency.  But, we still need to finish decluttering our current home, replace the fence and paint it...All things that we were planning on anyway but not so fast.  So  much stress and pressure to have to decide on so soon.  I am so tempted to just do it, put an offer in get it over with - we wouldn't have to do a thing to the new house. It's in the same neighborhood - two blocks away, same schools, same neighbors and when a hail storm comes my truck will fit comfortably in the garage.  Yay!  But having the get our current home for sale and risk it being listed for an unknown time and have to pay 2 mortgages with the unknown of how long the house would take to sell - that is what puts me on edge.  Obviously, it would be way less stress to just continue working on decluttering my current home and be happy with what we have.  It's a great house already it's just overwhelmed with stuff. 

Did I also mention the other things we have going on? Let's see:

1.  I applied for a fulltime job since being a stay at home mom for almost 10 years.

2.  I am cleaning out every room in the house room by room - which has to be done by May 12th!

3.  Get an estimate for new carpet, build of new fence, and buy paint and supplies.

4. Manage to get to dance classes, softball practices and games during the week & weekends.

5.  This week took a detour -  my youngest EB got diarrhea for the 3rd time - 3 weeks in a row and has to have a special diet of no milk products, or gluten.   She was doing fine until Monday of this week when she had an ice cream sandwich at school and devoured a bunch of wheat crackers of which the first two ingredients are wheat and milk! Augh...

6. Myself and my awesome husband were woken up at 1 am by EB saying I have diarrhea!

7. My husband is still attempting to finish his Phd - which has been 3 or 4 years in the process. He has been working on this on our formal dining room table - which we never use because the room we use for the office is full of boxes of kids clothes and various other boxes  of random stuff we don't know what to do with.

Birthday Cakes & Fondant Icing Part I

Well it's time for my oldest daughter's birthday again.  LB will be six this year and I decided that since last year's birthday party was kind of disappointing I asked her how she wanted to celebrate her birthday this year.   I have to admit, I was secretly hoping that she would want a small family and close friends affair.  Well, I was sadly mistaken.  LB announced that she would like a party at a popular bounce house place, complete with a doll cake of some sort and she wanted to invite all of her classmates.   So with some trepidation, I thought about her idea for about a week.  I decided that this year I would be the Mom who sends out invitations to all the classmates in the class; which is completely opposite of what I normally do.  YIKES!   I would have loved to do an EchoAge party again for LB this year, as it was very rewarding and made my youngest very proud to go shopping for a special shopping trip just for her birthday.  However, LB's school does not share the email of the parents of the children in her class, so this kind of forced the issue of sending out traditional invitations the her classmates.  I was a little bummed about this fact. 

So, after some thought and discussions about what she would like for the party, we decided to book that date at the bounce house place and invite her classmates - 17 in all.  LB also mentioned that she would like to have a doll cake.  First there was a request for a Dora doll cake, which was a little surprise because she has never mentioned anything about Dora before. Last night, at dinner LB made another birthday cake announcement,  she requested a  Tinkerbell doll cake.  And me being a very brave mom who loves to bake and attempt to decorate cakes decided to to try to make this cake happen, complete with fondant frosting - which I have not dealt with before.

I have not made a doll cake before so this is going to require a practice cake.  This weekend I baked two cake layers.  The top part of the doll cake is from the Pampered Chef batter bowl, and the other layer will be a traditional 9" cake pan.   I had two boxes of cake mix.  I mixed up up the cake batter, prepped the batter bowl with Baker's Joy and poured the batter in the bowl, placed it on the over at 350 and baked for about 35 minutes according the directions.  Well, turns out that I put too much batter in the batter bowl and the cake puffed up and ended up looking like a huge muffin top.  None the less, the extra baking time was about 12  minutes more due the middle being a little raw after 35 minutes of the suggested baking time.  The 9" layer turned out perfect in 25 minutes.  I made a bowl of butter cream frosting made and added a little food coloring to dye it pink.   After letting the cakes cool, I placed the batter  bowl layer on the 9" layer and decided that I will need to bake an additional  8" layer.  So for now the practice doll cake pieces are all in the fridge waiting to be put together. 

I do not know what the outcome will be for this practice doll cake.  If it turns out well, I plan on making a Tinkerbell doll cake.  If the practice cake turns out not so well, then I guess I will be going to a local bakery.  I do admit, I am somewhat of a cake & cookie snob due to all the wonderful time I spent in the kitchen with my mom baking homemade cookies, cakes and icing  from scratch.   Those were wonderful times for me as a child, watching and helping my mom mix up dough, measuring out ingredients and most of all getting to lick the bowl.

The Girls Are Great

Since my last post, I was stressed out over having to go back to the doctor to get a Electrostatic biopsy to check cysts that were found to during a routine mammogram.  The time between scheduling the biopsy and actually getting it done were stressful at times and happy at times.   Sitting around the house just thinking about what "could be"  was bad enough.  This was not time to have to deal with the possibility of having cancer, but there is no time to deal with cancer, much less the time worrying about if I have it or not.  

The day for my biopsy arrived, and I dragged around the house until the last minute until it was time to leave to go the to the doctor's office.  The procedure went well and started off with of course another mammogram, this time two additional mammograms to get a better look at the cysts the doctor wanted to check.  Needless to say, after that it was time for the Electrostatic Biopsy.  This type of biopsy requires the patient to lay down parallel to the floor in a compression table with an opening in the table for the breast to go through.  The area be biopsied is numbed up with a topical anesthetic and the procedure begins with an ongoing live digital mamnmogram taking picures while the doctor uses a needle with a suction to procure the tissue to be collected.  I had three different locations to be checked and  other than being a little uncomfortable on a compression table laying face down with one of my "girls" getting squished, poked with a needle attached to a vacuum device, I would say it wasn't that painful.  

A day and half after the biopsy, my awesome doctor called me with great news - No cancer anywhere!  My awesome  doctor called me from her cell phone while on vacation to tell me the news. Yay! I said a prayer of thanks and prayed for all the other women out there going through the same thing, and for those who are diagnosed with breast cancer.

Three days later after the procedure it felt like my boob had got hit with a baseball bat.  Thank goodness for the prescription pain medication.  A few weeks later the bruise looked worse and turned every color of the rainbow.  About a month later, I can finally say I am officially healed and thankful that my outcome was a good one.  I can handle a bad bruise and a small puncture wound compared to the other women who are battling breast cancer.  It never is too late to get a mammogram, when in doubt get checked out, you might save your own life.

The New Attitude

When I started to write this blog, I did not ever imagine that I would be writing on the topic of mammograms.   Two weeks ago, I got my first mammogram and the entire process took about 25 minutes from the time I walked into the doctors office,  got the mammogram and left.  I thought great, I have that crossed off my to do list.   A few days later, however I get a phone call from the breast center informing me that I need to come back in for a more detailed mammogram and I am told that it is normal to get a call back after the 1st mammogram because I have no baseline from previous mammograms.  So, for one week I am thinking this is  normal for a first mammogram, since I have not had one before and not to worry.   I even get a call from my primary physician,  and she tells me that it is common after a first time mammogram to get called back because there is no baseline mammogram for a comparison.    I spent the week, thinking about all the "what ifs" that could possibly be wrong. It could be benign, it could just be how my body is, or it could be cancer.  There is no family history of breast cancer in my family in any of my female relatives, however, now all the research I have read states that it doesn't make much of a difference anymore if there is a family history of breast cancer or not.  

 

I go in for the second appointment and this one takes a lot longer than the first.  I am escorted to the changing room, given a long gown that goes on like a robe and I am asked to put my stuff in a locker.  There are some wipes wrapped in cute pink packaging  that I have to use to wipe off any deodorant I might be wearing.  Quickly, I change into the robe and wait in the lobby next to to the changing area. I wait and wait, look through a magazine and wait a little bit more.  The radiology tech comes to get me and she says, "Sorry for the wait we had a few issues going on with something."   I go in the exam room for the 2nd mammogram. This one is different from the first, as the doctor wants more detailed pictures  from multiple angles. So, the radiology tech and I contort my right side and my arms and chest in multiple positions for all the pictures that need to be taken.  This whole time I am wondering, great my boob is getting smashed like a pancake and I am going to be sore for a few days, and I know that I don't need to worry about anything because I am fine.  After finishing up with the second group of mammo pictures, I am escorted back in the waiting area by the dressing room and told not to change into my top because now I have to wait to meet with the doctor and see if she wants to do additional procedures.  Sitting there in the waiting area, I  peruse a stack of magazines, People catches my eye.  I end reading a story on one one of the latest reality stars and finish it.  Perfect timing, because by that time, I get called back into another room to wait for the doctor.  I am ushered into a room that is dark with a dark ceiling with white Christmas style lights on the ceiling, rock music is playing over the speaker system and I can see the pictures of my mammo up on a computer screen. The radiology tech, informs me that the doctor wants to meet with me to chat for a little while, do an ultrasound and do a breast exam.  A few minutes later, my doctor enters the room; she is is a petite athletic blonde similar to myself.  She explains in detail that what she sees on the mammo pictures are calcifications and since I have not had a mammo before she wants to be certain to find out what type of tissue it is.  These calcifications, could be DCIS (Ductal carcinoma in situ) the most common type of non-invasive breast cancer or just calcifications that are benign.   She further explains that I  can either come back every 6 months for 2 years to get checked or get a biopsy and find out exactly what it is. She explains to me that she had the same thing happen to her and she chose to have a biopsy and she ended up having DCIS and went through all the treatment to get be cancer free.  Either way, she would be alright with whatever decision I make and it was medically acceptable to her.  Needless, to say I am putting all my faith in my doctor, she is a breast cancer survivor herself, and all I can do is listen to her and let her do all the procedures and tests that she deems necessary.  Next week, I am scheduled to have a biopsy done.

I am staying positive for as of now, I am healthy and I am still a mom and I am definitely not old.   So with that in mind, I am spending the last few weeks with my children before school starts doing fun things together whenever possible.  My oldest starts kindergarten this year and there are a lot of activities I want to do with her. Once school starts, I won't have the freedom to do activities with her during the week anymore.  Also, it takes my mind off of  the upcoming procedures and the children and I get the benefit of spending quality time together.  I don't want to be the parent who is tethered to her smart phone or netbook at the playground.  I want to be the parent who sets out to have enjoyable experiences with her children and isn't idly sitting by watching the kids play and not interacting with them. 

Potty Training...

Well it's that time.  Time for the little one to start potty training.  I thought that since we started out with cloth diapers on my youngest when she was about 6 months old that potty training her would be a breeze.   The cloth diapers worked out well for her due to her allergic reactions that she had to disposable diapers as an infant.  Fast forward to when she was about 2 1/2 years old and she started showing interest in going to the potty.  She would ask to sit on and sometimes she even put some "pee pee" in the potty and was doing great.  Well at about this time I was still cloth diapering her.  Eventually, I did discover some disposable diapers that she was not allergic to that I used when we were away from the house and out & about, Huggies Pure & Natural.   This discovery slowly led to me using the Huggies more and more the cloth diaper less and less mainly due to not having to do so much laundry and to her interest in potty training.  Switching from the cloth diapers to the disposable diapers turned out to be a huge mistake!  Now she wasn't able to tell when she was wet and would insist that her diaper was dry because the disposables pulled too much wetness from her skin.  I was so sure that she was close to being potty trained and I was tired of the cloth diaper laundering process that I got a little lazy.  Hence, my laziness created a kink in the potty training process. Then all of  her interest in potty training quit. Oh uh.

So in desperation I went on a search for cloth training pants that fit like underwear and had some leak proof fabric similar to a cloth diaper.   My search led to some training pants called Bambino Mio training pants.  Bambino training pants are made of a cotton/poly fabric and have a leak proof liner in between the the fabric in the crotch area so that when the child wets, it will not gush all over the floor but will still allow the child to feel the wetness.  Well, yesterday she wore her first pair of training pants all day - and not one accident.  Today however she wore her training pants for a little while and had an accident.  Granted the pants were soaked and were obviously wet but the pee did not go all over the floor.   She ran to me and said, "Mommy, I need new pants."    These training pants are doing their job so far and the clean up is easier than having to clean up a huge pee puddle on the floor.