24 books...

IS my final count for the year!

After I wrote this post about how I had amazed myself with having read 20 books this year, I continued to plug away at my To Be Read (TBR) list...and low and behold I finished 3 more books and am almost done with one more.

I read
Two for the Dough by Janet Evanovich
The Girl who Played with Fire by Steig Larsson
The Right Address by Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman

And I'm currently finishing up
Reunion by J.L. Penn

I'm shocked, that's an average of 2 books a month...which I find amazing considering I work full time and have two little kids.

One of my goals for 2011 is to read at least 25 books...I plan to put my kindle to good use!

Okay enough tooting my own horn!

Spoiled....

You know your kids are spoiled when they want to stop opening presents in the middle of Christmas morning because they are "tired of presents". After I got past my initial shock, questioned if Natalie was really my kid...I forced her to keep opening presents...because really who gets tired of presents!

Christmas Recap...

Christmas was awesome, truly great! We spent time with family, the girls got amazing gifts, everyone was spoiled. The food was delicious, the drinks were plentiful, and the desserts were divine. But....oh and it's a big BUT...the poop and barf sort of overshadowed the day.
Yup, poop AND barf. And yes this is a TMI post...so stop now if you don't want to read about poop and barf.

Natalie woke up on Christmas morning at about 6:45 covered in poop. She is potty trained but wears pull-ups at night time...well pull-ups as I've learned do not have the same holding shit in power that diapers have. So my lovely daughter comes into our room crying and saying "I'm soaking wet" okay, no problem we've had pee leaks here and there and it's nothing I can't deal with...even on Christmas. But as I turned on the light in her room I was greeted with the HORROR of poop EVERYWHERE! Seriously it looked like a poop bomb had exploded all over Natalie and her bed. So I decided that my evil plan of changing her pj's and putting her back to bed would have to be trashed in favor of a shower, Lysol, and a gas mask.
Not only was it disgusting, but my grand plan of the girls on Christmas morning opening presents in matching pajamas was ruined!

After I chiseled the shit off of my kid (really who shits themselves in the middle of the night and doesn't notice until the morning) and got her settled in my bed with some Mickey mouse, I tackled stripping her bed and showering the stench off of myself....all in time to begin cooking breakfast for the 12 people who were due at our house...just an hour later.

Breakfast was delicious, I made a yummy strata and a delightfully fattening hash brown casserole and my mom made an amazing French toast bake.
We spend HOURS opening gifts, it took so long that Natalie had to take a break because she was "tired of presents".....sometimes I wonder if she is really my kid.

After we finished presents, we ran out the door to Christmas #2, where my girls got their first pairs of diamond earrings..*cough* spoiled *cough*, after opening more presents and visiting we had to run to Christmas #3 (and thankfully the final destination )

We had an intimate dinner at my parents house, with only 10 people in attendance...which is a far cry from the dinners where we had 20+ attendees.
We had Fillet, and delicious wine and then played an fun game of Left Right Center....if you haven't played...you must try it. SO fun!

Then more friends came for my parents annual Christmas Dessert party where guests buried their Christmas drama under servings of cheese cake and wine!

Finally I pry my kids away from the fun they were having with their Aunts and Uncles and coax them into going home. No sooner do we make it home than does Addison barf all over herself and her car seat.

Poop in the morning and now barf in the evening....and that set the tone for the day after Christmas and the 2 days following. The girls took turns vomiting on me, and or shitting all over everything....and I spent 3 days doing laundry and spraying everything with Lysol....

Oh and I almost forgot....Sunday morning we (Dan and I) spend 4 hours in the ER where we learned that his giant kidney stone, which had been blasted into many many smaller kidney stones had decided to get stuck in his ureter and was causing pee to back up into his kidneys and cause excruciating pain.

As sympathetic as I am towards him, I was totally pissed that this left me alone to clean barf and shit while he laid passed out on the couch from all the "great pain meds" they gave him in the hospital.

So, as awesome as Christmas was....I'm glad it's over and hope that our household can remain shit free for the foreseeable future.

We have a date!

Surgery is scheduled for January 6....just over a week from now.
Holy Shit! I knew that it would be here soon since it had to happen before the 13, but having that date on the calendar is kind of freaking me out.
And after how crazy my kid have gotten after being couped up in the house for only 3 days I'm a little nervous about how they'll do being in the house for 2 weeks...yikes!
Let the count down begin!

Awesome mom moment of the week....

Natalie has been waking up in the middle of the night, most nights she comes to our room and I put her back to bed. Well at 3am this morning I heard (what I thought was) her door opening, I decided to try to cut her off before she even made it into our room.
So I jumped out of bed to rush to her room....upon my "jump" out of bed I kicked something....I thought it was the dog.... WRONG.
I kicked Natalie in the face, she went flying back and hit her head on my dresser. Shit! Well of course I couldn't put her back in her bed at that point....so once again she ended up in bed with us....
Nothing like kicking your kid in the face to give you a bit of mom guilt.

I should start getting dressed at work...

I think I might actually have better luck if I wore my pjs to work and then changed.

I got dressed this morning, got the kids ready, dropped them off at daycare, came to work and worked for a good chunk of the morning before I looked down and realized that my shoulder was totally covered in baby slime. Slime that had now dried and looked like gross crusty white stuff on my shoulder. Freaking awesome. Oh and then I proceed to continue to examine my outfit and see a foot print on my jeans....apparently my toddler's shoe was a bit dirty and left a mark today when she used my leg as a spring board.

I guess the bags under my eyes, the half-assed makeup, the perma-ponytail and the extra lbs just weren't enough...no now my kids are marking their territory on my clothing too.

I really love my life, sometimes I just wish I didn't look like life was kicking my ass.

Santa

We took the girls to see Santa, I was fully expecting a melt down like last year when Natalie didn't want to sit on his lap but I forced her to which resulted in one of those awesome screaming pictures.
Anyhow, we prepped her and I was okay with not getting a picture or getting another of those crying pictures...because I'm mean mom and I LOVE those pictures.
For days she had been telling us that she wanted to ask Santa for a "camera toy" she has been obsessed with taking pictures and wants to use our camera but isn't allowed to regularly.
So the night comes that we're taking the girls to Santa, before we leave daycare my mom asks Natalie what she's going to ask Santa for and she replies "a TV book" what?! So I ask her to tell me what a TV book is....and she points to my mom's Mac book. Uh nice try kid.
Seriously where does she get this stuff.

So I explained that Santa doesn't bring little girls TV books, which resulted in crying and " but I want it" screams. Aaaaahhh to be 2.5.

But low and behold we get to Santa and she asks for a candy cane....to which he gladly gives her a candy cane...and now she thinks that Santa only brings candy.

I guess it's going to be a cheap Christmas for us if all we have to buy is candy....

Within the next 30 days...

Per the surgery scheduler we are the books and the surgeries will happen within the next 30 days...actually the next 24 days since I'm a bit late on this update.
We met with the "other" surgeon and he was great! I feel really comfortable with either of them. Dr. P is the chief of the department but is seriously lacking in personality...but I know he's one of the best, he's highly respected in his field and all that jazz. Dr. Z is also great, his education is just as high or higher than Dr. P, but he's less published. However his bedside manner and his personality was light years above Dr. P.
Ultimately I am happy with my decision of taking whomever could fit the girls in first.

The surgery scheduler is allowing us to have the surgeries done on the same day. The PA was originally against this but Dr. Z seems to think it's a fine idea and once the PA heard our reasoning she was on board. Dan is still out of work so we can both be home for the entire 2 week recovery period. Also my brother will be home from college, so we'll have lots of support.

The pre-op appointments went well...all except for getting urine samples from an infant and a toddler....but some surgical tape, U bags, and a lot of mess later we got pee samples in cups and they made it to the lab! When we get a surgery date we'll do the blood work for the girls...another part I'm not looking forward.

I'm very hopeful that in a short few months this will all be behind us and we'll be no worse for the wear.

Schedules...

I posted earlier this week about how much choosing a Neuro-Surgeon sucks. Well I finally decided to go with the one who had a bit more availability in December/January. It was really hard to make the decision. I polled friends, family, I threw darts, I consulted doctors and nurses, I stopped random strangers on the side of the road...okay well maybe it wasn't that extream but it was hard, okay!

I decided to go against my gut (which was leaning toward the Chief of the dept) and go for the doctor who had kids, and a little more personality...and was a micro vascular surgery specialist.

So as soon as I made the decision a pre-op appointment was made...for a week from Monday no less. And we are officially on the cancellation list. The girls could be having their surgeries as soon as the end of December!

I also decided to have both kid done at the same time. We made this decision for multiple reasons, and I think that as stressful as it will be, having the entire process behind us at once will be so worth it.

So that is the most up to date update I have. Hopefully in 2011 I won't have to think about tethered cords, neuro-surgeons or hospitals at all.