Feb

29

Braggity, brag, brag

Filed Under PBN Blog Blast, bragging rights, dance crap, dancing baby, video | 10 Comments

What? You want me to brag about my kids? Gee, I don’t know. Let me see if I can find something to brag about.

PBN and Jenifer Fox are asking that we brag and share our kids strengths for this weeks Blog Blast. I don’t normally toot my kids horns too much on my blog. That’s so boring. Writing and reading about the ugly side of parenting is so much more interesting but if I must…

I have four children that are more different than alike. They all have something that they’re good at that sets them apart from each other. This is a good thing. Keeps things interesting and cuts down on competing and jealousy.

Madeline is almost ten and is our performer. I knew she was destined for Broadway when she was two and would skip around the house in her ruby slippers singing “The Yellow Brick Road”. And she was good. She can also boogie and has been taking dance classes since she was three and has been on the competition team since she was five. Drama is her middle name which is a bad thing when she’s having a tantrum but her bad drama self rocks on stage. She’s trying out for The Muny tomorrow and will be singing “Popular” from the Broadway play Wicked. Here’s a video of her singing. Her siblings were distracting her so it’s not her best vocals. The only vocal training she has had was one year on The St. Louis Children’s Choir. It was too much of a time commitment with her hectic dance schedule so she quit.

You can see some of Madeline’s dance routine’s here and here. She’s the one on the floor in front of the first one and wears glasses so it should be easy to find her in the group.

Isabelle is almost eight and is our artist. She is very crafty and creative. She has made some amazing crafts just from crap she finds around the house and loves to draw. Here is her latest masterpiece:

Isabelle also plays soccer and does an amazing presentation of “Silent Night” in sign language. Both girls can say the sign of the cross and the Our Father is Spanish.

Connor is six and is working on finding out what his “thing” is. He plays soccer and baseball but isn’t that crazy about either. He loves music and playing the drums. He can shoot a mean game of pool and is my go to man when I can’t get Mario out of a sticky situation on Mario Super Galaxy. Unlike his older ADD sisters he has amazing concentration. He loves making maps in his Montessori class and can draw very good penis people.

Marigrace is two and my last baby. She loves music and dancing like her big sis and is pretty good at it as evidenced in this video I can’t get enough of showing off. My sole mission of late is to get the video featured on Ellen. Feel free to email it to everyone in your contact list.

Marigrace is also our clown. She never fails to entertain us with her goofiness. Our neighbor has nicknamed her “Lucy” since she has Lucille Ball-like comedy and red curly hair.

Thanks PBN for giving me permission to brag!

Feb

26

I’ve been dumped by the blogosphere

Filed Under Blogging, dance crap, parents gone wild | 22 Comments

I know, I’m being a bit dramatic but for about a week it certainly felt like my blog had fallen off the face of the earth.

It all started after my move from Blogger to Wordpress. The move seemed to have gone well until I realized my readers had dropped off. I didn’t notice at first because I was getting an average of 600 hits a day thanks to Ellen and all the folks searching for a Tiddy Bear. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for the tiddy people, especially since some of them pulled up a chair and got to know me better but I’m missing my blogging buddies that I’ve grown close to over the last 18 months. I was making the rounds and visiting my friends but very few were stopping by. It didn’t take long for me to feel a bit paranoid as to why I was dumped. After a few emails inquiring as to where the hell I was I realized that I had royally screwed up my feed during the move. Somehow I managed to lose nearly 200 readers and I can’t figure out how to fix it other than to ask my blogging buddies to resubscribe.

It actually turned out to be a good timing because the weeks following my absence from the blogging radar got a bit crazy. It started with a pain in my chest. According to Dr. Google my pain was probably due to a slight case of hypochondria and costochondritis since I had the hallmark sign of pain when I pushed on the area under my breastbone. At first I blamed the pain on sitting over my ‘puter with the double D’s I had implanted last year but days later I ended up with a nasty respiratory infection that was most likely the cause of my pain or at least that’s what I prefer to believe.

I must say I have not been that sick in years and a little over two weeks later I’m still trying to kick the residual cough and runny nose. The dreary cold slit your wrist weather and one too many snow days that had me cooped up with four hyper kids and an even more hyper 70 pound puppy sent me into quite a funk. Then a friend of Isabelle’s broke her arm while in my care which pushed me into a major case of funkiness. The last thing I felt like doing was blogging to an audience who was only interested in finding out where they could buy a Tiddy Bear.

I’m in much better spirits today although our weather still really sucks. I can’t remember the last time I saw the sun for more than an hour.

What has helped bring me out of my funk is that I spent the weekend at a dance convention with Madeline, my dear friend Vickie and her daughter. It was our first dance convention and it was a blast. Vickie is so much fun to be around and with my bladder control problem that meant a lot of piss in your pants moments for me.

Our daughters also had a great time. Their teachers included Nick Bass who has danced with Janet Jackson, Britney Spears, and Justin Timberlake, and Ivan Koumaev who was featured on “So you think you can dance” and has also danced in a Hanna Montana video. Needless to say they were very excited to be in the presence of such phenomenal dancers. The girls learned a lot and Madeline won a $250 dance scholarship which was an unexpected surprise.

The girls with Ivan

If you know me well then you know that hardly any event I attend escapes without me embarrassing myself and this one was no exception. My friend Vickie has a milkshake that brings all the boys to her yard so she was all for taking the parent hip hop class and talked me into joining her. Once committed to the class we find out that we would be performing our dance to J.T.’s “Bringing sexy back” on stage in front of our kids, their dance teachers, and the professional dancers/choreographers. I was scared shitless and to make matters worse I opened my big mouth that I could do cartwheels so I had to do a cartwheel across the stage along with three other big mouthed moms.

It ended up being better than I thought it would be. I didn’t mess up too bad at my sad attempt at being sexy. There was a lot of screaming for us fools which felt really great. The best part was how proud and excited Madeline was. I didn’t tell her that I would be performing so she was clueless until we were called onstage and she saw me run up. She waved her arms in the air while yelling, “That’s my mom!” That moment made making a fool of myself completely worth it. I could have bought the DVD to share with you but I don’t want to burst my bubble that maybe I looked a bit sexy and that I have some rhythm.

The cutie patootie Tre Holloway who taught our parent hip hop class

Good times.

Feb

6

Crazy weather and breathing problems

Filed Under blah blah blah, sick kids | 32 Comments

It’s been a rough week. We are having some crazy ass weather here. Last Friday brought us a huge dump of snow and kids home from school. By Monday we were pulling out our shorts and t-shirts for 75 degree weather. Would you believe my kids asked if we could go swimming? Missouri is classic for sledding one day and suntanning the next.

The warm weather didn’t last long. After a few wicked thunderstorms we turned cold again. Then yesterday we had the dreary, rainy kind of weather that makes you want to slit your wrists.

Today as I was walking out of Target after much needed Target therapy the sideways sleet and ice moved in. Of course my truck was parked where I had to walk in the direction of the sleet. It felt like my face was being pelted with tiny pebbles.

Just as I shut my trunk a cart guy yelled out to me that I forgot a bag in the store.

Are you kidding me?

I had to get Marigrace out of her car seat and head back in for my bag. Walking in wasn’t so bad since the ice was now falling on my back but the walk back to my truck left me with a red and frozen face. This is the point where I wanted to cry.

I’m exhausted.

Connor and Marigrace have bad colds. They both have very reactive airways so their colds turn into barking coughs that end in puke and labored breathing. Night time is the worst so between sick kids and thunder storms sleep has eluded me.

Marigrace is much better today but it was a rough weekend. It reminded me of the first 14 months of Connor’s life and the frequent ER visits for croup and breathing difficulties that all started after he spent five days on oxygen in the hospital for RSV when he was only 10 weeks old. Fortunately we found a wonderful allergist who diagnosed him with allergies and asthma. He’s now on medication that keeps his asthma controlled but colds are still a big trigger for him. Marigrace seems to be the same way but not as severe.

I’m a nurse so I can handle most medical issues pretty well. Give me the shits and pukes, broken bones, fever, cuts, burns, and stitches but the breathing stuff makes me a nervous wreck.

For two days Marigrace breathed so fast and hard that her little chest sucked in and out. I gave her Albuterol treatments around the clock to control the wheezing which would cause her heart to beat fast. The labored breathing scares the shit out of me but I have to hide my fears from my freaked out hubby who is wanting reassurance from me that she’ll be okay.

I didn’t sleep much at all those few nights because I held her all night out of fear that her little body would poop out from working so hard to breathe. By Monday her wheezing and labored breathing had greatly improved and she was acting more like her feisty two year old self. I took her to the doctor mostly to appease my hubby. I was already doing for her all that needed to be done besides letting the cold run its course. Even though I’m a nurse my hubby wants to hear from the doctor that our baby isn’t dying. He is usually pretty calm and even keeled about things. I’m the emotional one but when it comes to our kids getting sick he freaks out.

I can’t blame him though. He lost his parents when he was a teen and we have had more than our share of scares with Connor’s asthma. The worst was when I was in the hospital after giving birth to Marigrace. My hubby called around midnight to let me know that Connor was having bronchospasms and inquiring how to mix his Albuterol in the nebulizer. An hour later he called frantic that Connor was not getting relief from the treatment, steam, or cold air. The poor man has spent so many nights driving our son around with the windows down or sleeping on the deck in the cold under a pile of blankets just to help Connor breathe.

This time he was really freaking out and upon hearing Connor’s cough through the phone I knew we had a different kind of problem on our hands. Connor had stridor and needed steroids and epinephrine. My hubby got a neighbor to stay with the girls and headed to the ER.

I felt so helpless and scared. I spoke to my hubby around 2 am when he was in the ER at the very hospital I was in. Connor was a little better but there was a possibility he would need to be admitted.

I finally dozed off until I was awakened by our pediatrician around 6 am. Turned out that Connor was admitted and he had just seen him. The sucky thing is I was being discharged that day. Fortunately the hospital discharged me but let me stay in my room until Connor was discharged which ended up being later that evening.

I don’t know why I just wrote all this. Flight of ideas I guess. If you’ve ever had a conversation with me then you know I tend to do this. Not only do I talk a lot but I start on one subject and end up on another. I always seem to have something to say.

Did I mention that all this dreary weather makes me want to eat all day?

Feb

1

The Tiddy Bear: Real or a spoof?

Filed Under dancing baby, funny, video | 14 Comments

I have had an outrageous jump in hits the last two days. I thought it was due to the giveaway I’m hosting but upon checking my stats I come to find that 600 hits were from searches for “tiddy bear”.

I wrote a post about the Tiddy Bear last April and posted a link to where it can be purchased. That link no longer works and there is quite a bit of chatter over the internet if the Tiddy Bear is an actual product or a commercial spoof.

One of my commenters let me know that Ellen DeGeneres attempted to order one on her show yesterday. I don’t know if she was successful or not but I did find a site that sells them. I will call them tomorrow to see if this thing is legit or not.

If only I could get this many hits for this YouTube video of my toddler’s impressive dance skills. Maybe then Ellen would put the video on her show. I know I’m biased but I think it’s much cuter than some of the kid videos she’s shown lately.

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