Christmas Fun

The whole fam has had a great Christmas. My mom, Devin and Ronnie came over on Christmas Eve and we had delicious carne con chile that Steve made. The girls got enough gifts from my mom for every child in the county and the noticeable theme was Barbie and Princess. We got the best gift ever...a wii, wii fit and guitar hero and have been having a lot of fun playing all of the different games and exercises. We're already planning to head over to Hollywood Video tomorrow to rent some new games.

One of our traditions is that on Christmas Eve, an elf rings the doorbell at night and leaves a package from Santa with new pj's for the girls. This year, the girls heard jingle bells and Bella was convinced it was the bell on the elf's hat, bouncing as he ran away. I was really cute to see how excited she was to be that close to seeing an elf.

Our gift to the girls was a complete bedroom makeover on Christmas Eve. They slept in our room that night and within three hours we painted, rearranged furniture, brought in new furniture, put out new bedding and decor and new shelves. They love their new room and have been spending lots of time in there.

Dance Recital

The girls had their first dance recital a week ago and the theme was Disney Princesses. Matea had been talking about the recital all week and was really excited about it but then she refused to nap that day so she was extra moody come recital time. Bella had been battling a fever off an on for two days so she wasn't in the best mood either.

Matea did really well for the first two songs but then she slipped and fell and was too embarrassed to continue. Bella went back and forth between doing a great job and furiously scratching her tights and making her best pissed off face.

Thanks to grandma and great grandma for coming all the way over here for the recital and to Auntie Devin and Uncle "Wonnie" for coming too! I have some video that I'll try to upload later this weekend.

First visit with Santa

Today was both of the girls' first real visit with Santa. I think Bella may have seen Santa once or twice as a baby but it was more just throwing her on his lap, taking a quick pic and running off. We went to Santa's House near the mission in SLO and unfortunately for us, we showed up right as church was getting out so we had to wait for freakin ever. Add to that the fact that I misjudged the weather so both girls were freezing and it wasn't a fun wait.

Once we got to Santa, both the girls walked right up and were completely comfortable. Santa asked Bella what she wanted for Christmas and Tate said, "Um, I tink she wants pwesents." Stupid man.

A dream come true

Yesterday, Bella lived out one of her life long dreams...to ride a school bus. Her whole school rode the bus to a Christmas tree farm and Matea and I were able to meet them there. The girls both had a lot of fun at the farm but for Bella, it was all about the bus.

The real reason I had children

So I could have free household servants. Actually, they were fascinated with the new stick vac and asked to use it. Then, they enjoyed it so much, they asked to vacuum their room too. So really, I was doing them a favor.

You can't make this stuff up

This morning, Matea and I had the following conversation:

Me: What did you dream about last night?
Matea: Ummmmm, Grandma Cindy and Grandpa.
Me: Oh? What about them?
Matea: Ummmm, they were finding presents.
Me: Oooooo. What kind of presents?
Matea: Ummmmm, ballerina stuff.
Me: Grandpa was a ballerina?
Matea: No, he was the queen!

All dressed up with no place to go

I went into Matea's room during nap time yesterday to check on her and this is what I found...

Village Parade

The girls were part of the Arroyo Grande Parks and Rec parade group tonight. I can't say that I found it to be an enjoyable experience. We got there on time and spent 10 minutes trying to figure out where to line up, only to find that someone was parked in our spot. Then we were told that we were number 45 out of 50. So, we waited from about 4:30-6:00 before finally entering the parade. The kids were tired and restless but made it fine through the three blocks long parade. Matea had fun and a lot of the parade goers seemed to find her adorable, just like I do. Bella told me afterward that next year, she'd rather just watch the parade instead of being in it. Fine by me.

Thanksgiving in the Valley

Quality Time

During Matea's nap this afternoon, I decided to take Bella with me to run a few errands and spend some time together, just the two of us. Here was our conversation in the car...

Bella: Papa is smarter than you are.
Me: Thanks. I'm having a great time too.

Convo with Matea

Most people notice that Matea talks really well for a two year old and has a great vocabulary. So, sometimes, we can get in serious discussions like the following...

Me: Matea, you're drooling so much and your shirt is drenched. It's gross.
Matea: I'm not gwoss!
Me: I'm sorry, I didn't mean that you're gross, but all the drooling is.
Matea: You hurt me.
Me: I hurt your feelings? I'm sorry. Come here, let me hug you. Maybe you have a new tooth coming in. (Check it out) Yep! You're getting a new tooth!
Matea: I don't wanna a new toof! I don't want it!

Steve came home a while later and thought she felt warm. She had a 102.5 degree fever! Bella never really had any teething symptoms other than discomfort so I always forget about the fever, running nose, and all that other stuff. Anyway, I pumped some motrin in her and felt like a better mother.

Bella Reading

After realizing that we were sort of missing the boat with Bella on her interest in reading, I finally picked up the Bob Books yesterday and away she went! Now, I'm actually feeling a little bit better about waiting until now to start working on reading because she's doing it well and is confident. Being confident is a big deal for Bella. If she feels like she can't do something, just like her mama, it ends in yelling, tears and throwing.

Anyway, we're really proud of her and she even read her own Clifford bedtime book last night. I'm hoping my mom can get the rest of the Bob Book series for her through a connection at school and for her birthday, I might suggest to Matea that she gets Bella some of the phonics box sets from Dora, The Backyardigans, etc..

MRI Results

Everything was clear! It was so nice, my doctor walked in and the first thing he said was "Your brain is fine". We talked a lot about all of the other withdrawal symptoms I'm having in addition to the hallucinations and it turns out I may just be at the beginning of this ordeal. Apparently even at the low dosage that I was taking, it's recommended that a patient step off their dosage over a 3 month period. I went cold turkey! Now I know why my pharmacist's jaw dropped when this all first started and I told him I was off it cold turkey. I guess the doctor I saw the first night this all happened (my regular doctor's partner), wasn't aware of how extreme the withdrawal process could be.

So, because I didn't gradually go off the medicine, it could actually take a few months for my body to readjust and for all of the withdrawal symptoms to go away. I'm so relieved that the MRI was clear but still upset to hear that this all will go on for a while longer. Thanks for all of your good thoughts.

Quick Update

Still hallucinating at night. MRI scheduled for this afternoon. I'm hoping to have results by the end of the day but I know that's optimistic.

Some interesting quotes from this week

Matea to Jeff Lahodny: "Jeff, look at my boobies." (while pulling down her leotard)
Me to Matea: "Is that marker on your vagina? Did you color on your lala?" (and yes, she had)
Me to Bella: "Devin's not coming over to babysit pretend Haley. She's coming over to babysit real Bella so you've only got about 5 minutes left of playing Haley."
Bella: "Can I have pumpkin pie for dinner?"

Drama at the Dollar Tree

I took the girls to Dollar Tree yesterday to do some high end Christmas shopping. We ended up having quite the incident.

Matea picked out a faux ceramic cat for great-grandma that was exactly like the one she "gave" me for my birthday (really, she just let me open it, took it back, and then I secretly threw it away when she stepped on it and broke its paw). While walking around, she dropped the kitty and it shattered into hundreds of pieces. She was grief stricken. I'm talking down on her knees, sobbing, screaming "My kitty! My kitty!", and trying to pick up all of the little pieces. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it was as though a real kitten that she'd had for 15 years was run over in front of her. It was tragic.

In these overly dramatic and emotional situations, I don't think I'm usually very sympathetic. Bella's quite the drama queen so I'm usually just irritated by the huge emotional production. But I felt terrible for Matea. It was obvious that she was really devastated and her emotions were completely genuine. A stranger walked up to us and asked me to give her all of the broken pieces so she could throw them away while I whisked Tate over to buy a new kitty.

I felt so bad for her, I secretly bought two. One for her to give to great grandma and one for her stocking. I was feeling like quite the softy and really proud of myself for giving in to the dollar piece of crap which I normally find to be a waste but was happy to buy because I knew how happy Matea will be on Christmas morning. Then Bella had to ruin it all by blurting out in her loudest voice, "Um, why are you buying two kitties? Who is that black one for?". Shutty.

I love this kid

Matea is so much fun. Bella's going through another big whiney, ungrateful phase so Matea really lightens the mood. I'm sure Matea will go through the spoiled brat phase too once she learns to articulate her feelings better. In the meantime, she really brings so much fun and joy to my day.

She's potty training, doing a great job, and prefers to spend most of the day naked. Wearing undies is her idea of fully dressed. She's still a little peanut, only about 25 pounds, and she just looks so tiny wearing her undies.























We're still working on the bunk bed transition. Matea generally does well at nap time, maybe because I've been bribing her with peanut butter m&m's. Hey, whatever works. I won't do it forever. Just until she's 12 or so. Night time is another story. Some nights they settle in with 15 minutes after some chatter and a trip or two to the livingroom to try and strike up a conversation. Other nights, like last night, they spend an hour laughing, screaming, repeatedly coming out into the hallway to see what we're doing. So I decided to try and skip her nap today, hoping she would maybe fall asleep more easily tonight. I thought we were all lying down watching a movie and then I found her snoozing.
















A quick update on my hallucinations. Still having them at night although they seem to be a little less frequent and strong. I saw my doctor again yesterday and he agreed to wait until Monday for the MRI. If the hallucinations are being caused by the fibromyalgia medicine I just stopped, they should be gone by Monday. If not, there's a very small chance it could be something else like a brain tumor. My doctor assured me that he's confident it's withdrawal from the med and not to even think about the MRI or brain tumor right now. My anxiety level is crazy right now so I'm taking medicine at night to help with that and also help me sleep. My doctor wants me to continue with that for another few weeks until we can officially close the book on the hallucinations and move on with life.

Bad Parenting

We've been planning for the last year to get the girls bunk beds toward the end of this year. I ordered them last week and in a moment of bad parenting, we decided to pick them up last night, spontaneously buy a mattress that was $75 more than we thought we would spend, assemble the bunk beds, and throw the kids in to sleep two hours past their normal bed time with no bunk bed sleeping preparation.

Steve kept pointing out that when we moved Bella to a big girl bed, we talked about it for weeks in advance. With Matea, we just said, "Hey, look where you sleep now. Good luck."

The girls were really excited and definitely had some trouble settling down. Bella fell asleep within 20 minutes or so but Matea made a few trips out of bed before finally giving in at 10:00. This is the first phase of their grand bedroom redo that we're giving them for Christmas. They don't know it but on Christmas Eve, they're going to sleep in our room and we're going to completely makeover their bedroom with new paint, bedding, storage, desk, and decor. I'll definitely be having some late night coffee then.

In other news, the girls seem to be full of illness and injury this morning. It looks like Bella has ringworm (yuck!) so I'm taking her into the doctor later this morning. And Matea woke up saying her foot hurt and has given up wobbling around and is crawling instead. She keeps pointing to her toes but they look fine and don't seem to bother her when we move or squeeze them.

Even more costumes

Costumes, Take Two

Bella got to wear her costume to school today for their little party and then I think we're going trick or treating at the outlets for a bit before going around our neighborhood tonight. They'll wear their witch costumes later but decided to dress up as Tinkerbell and a fairy this afternoon. I think they were most excited about all the purple glitter eye shadow.

Pumpkin Carving

We carved pumpkins last night and both girls had clear ideas for what they wanted their pumpkin to look like. Matea wasn't too happy about scooping out the seeds and flesh and kept saying, "That's dirty". Bella was determined to do it all by herself but ended up needing some help with the carving. I decided to do something different with my pumpkin and carved the outline of a Crafty Mama purse:)

Halloween, Take One

I think the girls will have the opportunity to dress up three or four times this week but last night was their first chance at the Arroyo Grande Halloween Carnival. The carnival was packed with tons of people, too many if you ask me. I think both girls were a little overwhelmed by it but Matea was ready to stay and play every game they had while Bella wanted to throw in the towel early because she was too cold. We compromised and went out to ice cream with grandpa and grandma Cindy so the fun continued but we were out of the cold marine layer. I thought my two little witches looked very cute.

Pumpkin Pickin'

After a looooooong morning and several threats of not going, we finally made it to the pumpkin patch. I thought we were destined to have a terrible time after our crappy morning (the kids are really getting physical with each other lately and I doubled the dosage of my Fibromyalgia medicine on Friday and it's totally kicking my butt right now), but we ended up having nice family time at Windmill Farms.














































The girls took forever to pick their pumpkins and as usual, Matea kept changing her mind. I'm not sure she knew what she was looking for, but she knew she didn't like anything we presented. The important part of this post though is to look past the children and check out my new clothes and jewelry (purchased with birthday money from my mom) and my new makeup (purchased with birthday money from my in laws). I liked my new stuff so much, I even had Bella take a picture of me and Papa and I think she did a great job.







































When we got home, we decorated the outside of the house. Totally looks like Halloween threw up on our porch.