Sunday Senses - 1/30/10

Sight:  Barbie cases on wheels (good idea in thought, but now all the girls do is stock pile their crap in there), Princess Crocs - I wish I had cool looking Crocs instead of boring colored ones.
Hear:  The girls chattering downstairs, probably destroying the toy room as I type, cartoons (why do I still have them on if no one is in the room?)
Feel:  The soft microfiber recliner (hubby is at the gym, so I'm taking advantage of sitting in "his" recliner). 
Smell:  Coffee fresh and ready; all my Scentsy warmers filling the house with their yumminess (totally made that word up). I will be hosting a party next week, and will make a shameless plug.  Go check it out, it won't hurt to just look. 
Taste:  Coffee, as much as I need my coffee, I really do despise the after taste and will be rushing to go brush my teeth again. 

Go check out the host, Rebecca, she's hysterical! 

Friday Night Leftovers - updating

• This week has been mostly spent at home. 
• We ended potty training with Kinsley she is a stubborn little thing.
• Eligh is being B-A-D.  He used to be my lovable, easy to please, sweet little boy.
• Now he growls, screeches, sticks his tongue out, and tells us "No" all the time.  What happened?
• I went to the gym twice this week - but one of those days I did run 2 miles, not even close to my 3 miles I used to run.
• We updated our van (that had 50,000+ miles on it, a cracked windshield, front axle that probably would need to be fixed soon, and a small cracked tail light) for a 2010 updated version.  Fancy radio, a backup camera, dual dvd players (this was the selling point after replacing 2 dvd players), and less than 20,000 miles on it. 
• Kids have not set foot in it yet. 
• A little experiment was done this week.  We put all three of the kids to bed at 6:45 and they were all quiet and asleep by 7:00.  Put the littlest ones to bed at 7 and Addy to bed at 7:30 - E always goes right to sleep at bed time, and the girls were up until 8:30. 
• My application has been submitted, FAFSA filed, and I am looking at a start date of March 1 to work on my masters. 
• I don't know what to do with my self these days (more on this later).
• Eligh now tells Kinsley several times a day, "Settle down!"
• We are possibly going to attempt to take all the kids to a movie tonight.  Why?  It's free.  I'll try almost anything that is free once. 

Send some love to our host, Danifred. 

Truthful Tuesday - say "no" to potty training

I haven't done this in a hot minute, and feel like shedding some of my "bad" parenting skills.  Enjoy!

Bitter and disgusted

Yesterday's game was HORRIBLE!!!!  Bears' fans all over the the country are also disgusted.  Not only did they lose their chance at going to the Superbowl, but they lost to the number 1 team they hate the MOST.  What an absolute disgrace!

I will have to suffer through the Superbowl watching the enemy play, and hopefully they will lose so I can feel some sort of victory. 

We are attempting for the 8th time to potty train Kinsley, and we are failing.  She is wearing panties, and asking to go on the potty, and will sit on the potty 53 times a day to produce absolutely nothing.  She even spent an hour last night in her bed crying to use the potty, which we let her three times and again nothing happened.  She has 2-4 accidents a day, and that's it.  The most recent accident happened in the bathroom, so is that a step closer?  I'm so over it, and if by the weekend she does not do ANYthing, I'm going to stick her back in the diapers, because I don't have it in me to keep this up.  Eligh is not at all ready or interested, which is fine by me, and I hope that he just does it on his own before the age of 4 and I can forget this awful stage of their growing up. 

An answer to one question:  Where is the best place you have geographically lived?

• I have lived in three different states (Illinois, Georgia, and Missouri) now, and in seven different "homes."  Putting aside family and friends, I would say that where we lived in Georgia was the best geographically.  There was loads to do within two hours, and most being an hour or less.  There were beaches, flat lands, and decent weather.  I did NOT like the heat or humidity, and that is something I can't live with forever.  I cannot form a solid opinion about Missouri, just yet, as we have been here for only a month, but I don't foresee it being a place I would rank higher than Georgia.  With all the moving I have done, I have learned that it doesn't matter where you live or how far you are from people and places you know.  As long as you have a positive attitude and an openness to trying something new, happiness can be made everywhere.

Bigger than the bowl

Today, if you come by our house you will hear the following:  yelling, screaming, cheering, chanting, taunting, items being thrown, feet stomping, and the sound of someone weeping.  Why is that?  My husband and I will be watching the Bears vs. The Packers, which in our opinion is bigger than the Superbowl.  We are a house divided and it is going to get ugly here this afternoon.  U-G-L-Y. 

For those of you who don't know or care about this game, cheer for the Bears, ok?  Thanks. 

For a little Sunday fun, ask me a question.  Any thing you want to ask?  Go ahead, ask. 

I want one of those obnoxious, neon, lighted signs

The night of the rehearsal, my soon-to-be-married sister decided that I would be giving out communion during the wedding.  First thought, GERMS!  Yes, I said my 1st thought was germs (I know I'm a little, ok very demented). 
Wedding, I go up to hand out communion along with my brother who was chosen, also at the last minute, to give the wine.  The priest offers my brother and I before we all set down to offer communion to the rest of the guests.  1.  I don't like wine and 2. GERMS.
Fast forward to going to my sister's house to leave the kiddos while we go to the reception.....my sister says, "You'll never guess what (cousin so and so) asked me at the church."  Me:  "What?" Sister:  "He asked if you were pregnant, because you didn't drink the wine."  This was just the beginning of the questions that were being fired at me. 
1.  When are you going to have another?  never
2.  You just never know what will happen.  ha, ha.  As if getting pregnant were easy
3.  You want another set of twins?  Not really planning on having any more.
4.  Twins don't run in the family, how crazy.  You are right, they don't.  Clomid=increased chances for multiples.  I am one of them.
5.  You must have your hands full. Sure do.  Don't really need to be reminded
6.  You actually tried to have them this close?  Army = long deployments. 
I would love to have a scrolling neon sign to wear for such events where you are drilled and feel completely exposed by the time you go through your infertility.  Not that most of the people try to understand everything you are saying, but damnit they need to know.  The more we talk about infertility, the more awareness we can receive. 

The Infertility Rollercoaster

Wow, life surely is a rollercoaster ride.....
Cody and I had, had many conversations about increasing our family size sooner then later.  We weighed all our options, and with Cody still having two years left in the army, there is a possibility that he may have to deploy one more time before getting out.  Since he was so lucky to miss Addyson's entire first year of life, we did not want that to happen to our next child.  We made a decision to try and conceive while he was home on R&R (around Xmas 2007); which is not as easy as it seems. 
After having Addyson I thought everything was going to look up for me (as far as getting a regular period, etc).  Well, that ended around September.  I gave it until October and decided that I would indeed need to refer back to fertility drugs (i.e. Clomid) to get pregnant.  I called my doctor (now that I have a doctor I can call----thank you United Healthcare) and we put forth a plan of trying to get me pregnant during those 20 days Cody would be home.  We had it all planned out, and if everything worked out then we would indeed be able to conceive while Cody was home on R&R. 
The journey to conceive was causing a tremendous amount of anxiety for me.  Why?  I swore I would not get my period after taking my progesterone.  Finally...10 days after finishing Clomid she arrived (and it just so happened to be the day after Cody arrived home) --- ironic?  Very!  It was a blessing in disguise, that is for sure.  I started taking my OPK tests the day after finishing clomid, and again was very discouraged.  Would the lines every be the same???  Finally, on January 3, 2008 I got a positive OPK and ran back into the bedroom (mind you my old bedroom back home in Illinois ---- that's a whole other story) and announced with delight it was time.  LOL! 
Cody's R&R was extended until mid January, because his mother passed away while he was home on R&R.  With all the stress of traveling to Illinois and my MIL passing away, I had truly given up on TTC and did not believe that I would get a positive HPT.  Since Cody's leave was extended, I was able to test while he was home, and day after day I get coming back to bed pissed off.  I so badly wanted a positive HPT.  On day 10, I saw a faint line, a line I swore I was make believing.  I woke Cody up and told him to take a look and he said that yes, there definitely was a line.  OMG OMG!!!  YAY!!!  Then, began my obsession with testing daily twice a day to verify that I was pregnant and that the line was getting darker.  The day before Cody was to head back to Iraq I had my blood drawn and at 12DPO my HCG level was 124 (which was a great number).  So, I felt a little relief, of course until my next levels were drawn.....