Multitasking

This has been a very busy and crazy week for us. Work has been so busy. I am running around all day like a chicken with my head cut off. John had finals this week and then has been at a class to review for boards. And on top of everything I developed a kidney infection this week. Which makes me extra tired, in pain, and somewhat sick feeling. I had to work though because it was just so busy to call in so I just pushed through the pain. Well saturday was especially busy and long. I finished up work and just felt completely drained. I took the babysitter home and then kaysen and I waited for john to get done with his class. I feel asleep on the couch for a few moments and woke up in a pile of my own drool when john got home. I felt a little better after my 5 minute power/drool nap so we decided to go out to the mall because we hadn't done anything fun this week.

Kaysen didn't get his usual nap because he was too busy playing with the babysitter so he fell asleep in the car. John carried him as we walked around to a few stores. We decided to go into famous footwear and thats when our troubles started. As many of you know I tend to pass out on occasion. Especially on amusement park ridges that have strong g force or go upside down. It has been a long week and I think my body was just done from the infection and all the work. I think it finally decided to just shut down. We were in the store and I felt weird. I decided to sit down and thats when I stopped talking or responding. So as john held a sleeping kaysen he grabbed my head to support me as I slipped out of consciousness. So it must have been a sight to see. John holding a sleeping 4 year old while supporting his passed out wife from falling to the ground. After awhile I guess I woke up. For some reason my eyes were running with tears I don't know why. We then tried to make our way back to the car stopping every few feet or so to sit down because I was feeling a little light headed. We made it back home and headed up to bed. Of course I couldn't fall asleep. I just felt awful. I was completely exhausted but couldn't fall asleep. In my crazy light headed, exhausted, sick confusion I decided that this might in fact be my last night on earth. I started to say my goodbyes to john and found he was asleep already! This then made me so mad. Here I am about to die and my husband doesn't even care enough to stay awake to say goodbye to me. I then woke him up and told him if I didn't make it through the night I loved him. I also said I wanted him to stay awake with me until I was gone. That lasted all of 3 seconds until he started to snore. I decided it was his loss. He would regret not saying goodbye to me and I guess he would just have to live with that. Well after an hour I was able to drift away as the words "Goodbye world" Slipped from my mouth.

Well you can imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning. It in fact was not my last night on earth! I was just extremely tired and in hind sight maybe a little crazy. So I am happy to still be here and I also learned a valuable lesson. Despite what I believed up until this point john can multitask. He held me up while carrying kaysen and that is a big step in the right direction. And I am happy to report I am feeling somewhat better today. Especially mentally.

Merry christmas to all especially motorcycle Santa!

Well Christmas is upon us once again. I'm excited and can't believe it is already here. It is at this time of year when I am thankful for a lot of those things. One: Christmas lights. Two: Motorcycle santa. And Three: Presents! There are also somethings I am not thankful for.

I love looking at lights but I am too lazy to put them up, also I think it helps if you own your own house. So kaysen really wanted to put lights up on our house. There was no way that was going to happen. So being the evil mother that I am I came up with another idea. We live in a end unit on a row of town houses. Ours faces the side while all the others face the street. Our neighbors put up lights on their house and it's kind of hard to tell if they are ours or theirs so I told kaysen they were ours. He is really proud of our christmas lights.

It was really windy one Wednesday here. On my way home from work I was talking to John and he said that someone had decorated the bottom of our pine bush. He said it was really weird because they only put a few bulbs and a ribbon on the bottom. Well I forgot about it and never looked at it. On Friday I was pulling into the garage and noticed our wreath on the front door was gone. Immediately I knew where it was. When it was windy it blew off the door right under our pine bush. Since the wreath is pine too blind as a bat John thought someone was trying to give us a Christmas miracle by decorating our bush (and a poor job I might add). When I went out is was so obvious it was the wreath. It made for a good laugh though.

I also love motorcycle santa. If you haven't seen him driving around St. Louis yet then I am sorry for you. I past him on my way to work. He is dressed in full santa gear, beard and hair too. The best part is he randomly waves his hand ever 5 seconds or so even if there are no cars driving by or passing him. I think motorcycle santa is great!

The only reason I hate this time of year is because it flares up kaysens cyclic vomiting like crazy. While out christmas shopping this year at a busy mall kaysen wanted to go and play. We were at the mills mall so we took him to the indoor park which is right next to santa. Needless to say this is the busiest part of the mall. After about 10 minutes of play kaysen slowly started to walk over to us. We knew immediately by his pale appearance that he was going to vomit. So john grabbed him up and I looked for the nearest garbage can. It was right behind santas workshop. Unfortunately we didn't make it the 10 feet to the can. Kaysen started to projectile vomit. Immediately people started to scream and wail and I'm surprised nobody rent their clothes. As kaysen continued to projectile vomit all over the garbage can getting a few drops in I ran to get help. I found a security guard who was willing to leave his post to help me guard the vomit until maintenance got there. Hey when duty calls you must answer. So John and kaysen left to go get the car and me and the guard (known here on out at duty) kept a keen eye on the vomit. Being in the most busy part of the mall next to santa and the park, we tried to stop people from walking into certain doom. I would warn people not to throw away their soda in this particular can because "There is throw up on the ground". Many would just look at me like I can't tell them what to do and then proceed to walk full on into the vomit and to the trash can. Then they would start to freak out that they stepped in vomit and it was all over their shoes. Well at this point I kind of think they deserved it because they were warned. Although to their credit it was a pretty big radius. After what felt like an hour of guarding with duty my Spanish savior arrived to clean up. I told her I was really sorry and felt really bad. She smiled and waved me on. At the time I thought she was nice and understanding. Now I realize she probably didn't understand a word I said and was just trying to get me out of the way so she could clean up before there were anymore fatalities. I think this episodes really takes the cake for the most amount, most embarrassing, and most stinky throw up.

How Things Are

Well were very excited for Thanksgiving around here. John has the whole week off from school and that is the most exciting part. I only have Thanksgiving day off but at least we can spend it together. We're staying here this year and we don't have any visitors. I'm actually kind of excited about this because I can just relax, do what ever we want, and not have to entertain anyone. We'll probably put up our Christmas decorations and tree that day too.

We got kaysens results back from his mri and he is great! He doesn't have a brain tumor so that is good. He does have a cyst on the left side of his cerebellum but it shouldn't be a problem or be causing any of his problems. I'm glad to know it is just the cyclic vomitting. So now we just are trying to find something to help him deal with it better. We upped his does last time we went to the dr. but its coming back. He's had 2 episodes in the past few days. One we had to pick him up from school. It seems to be worse when its cold. We are for sure living somewhere dry when were done with johns school.

My work is going good. I've been there 4 months now. Were doing good and trying to make it through the end of the year. Kaysens been sick a lot, i've been sick some, and john has been sick too. John is actually the worst at being sick because he is a big baby. He acts like he is the sickest that anyone has ever been and he'll probably die at any moment. So this probably sounds horrible to say but its almost easier when kaysen is sick cause he just sleeps where as John wants a servant to fan over him and basically wipe for him.

Well I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving!

Ninja Warrior and Coffee!

Well I love posting about the funny things kaysen does. If I didn't have kaysen I don't think I would have anything interesting to write about. Well lately Kaysen is into two things Ninja Warrior and Coffee.
Let me explain Ninja Warrior. If you haven't seen it you should. It is a Japanese game type show. Contestants (mostly Japanese) compete in a extremely grueling obstacle coarse. They have to do in in a certain time limit. There are 3 stages and if you complete them all you are a ninja warrior. I think only like 2 or 3 people have ever completed in in the history of the show. Its really intense. Well it is also completely in Japanese. They do have English subtitles. Kaysen loves Ninja warrior. He doesn't even mind that he can't understand it. Every time he watches it he gets so into it and gets so nervous for each contestant. The best part is that where ever kaysen is in the house if he hears Japanese being coming from the TV his will run downstairs yelling, "My favorite show is on!" It doesn't matter if he is upstairs in his room far away he knows that Japanese means NINJA WARRIOR!

Another thing kaysen loves lately is Coffee. Well maybe just the idea of coffee. See we don't drink coffee so I think he must know about it from school. He tells me that all his teachers love it and always have their portable coffee mugs each morning. Well we were at a school event for John and they were giving out coffee mugs. You would have thought they were giving out trips to Disneyland the way kaysen reacted. He was SO excited! He immediately claimed the mug as his. Now every morning he can not start his day with out drinking his milk out of the coffee mug. He gets it and says "Ummmm that's good coffee." I remind him that its actually milk and not coffee. He then looks at me like I'm really stupid and says, "I know mom I'm just pretending." I sad part is I actually feel like I'm stupid for telling him that. Dang he's good.
Well it doesn't bother me I just think he is super cute. I can't help that fact that my little old man 4 year old is addicted to the idea of coffee or "coffee milkee" as he sometimes calls it. Oh well it gives me fun laughs!

The Poopy Prayer!

Well after being severly dehydrated, I've learned its really hard (literally) to get your first B.M. out. So yesterday kaysen tried 2 different times for 40 minutes each time to get it out with no avail. We even tried coaching him by saying "Focus and Push". That usually works when he gets backed up but not today. So after 30 minutes on the 3rd try John decided it was time to turn to a higher power. John and Kaysen then said a prayer that kaysen would be able to get his poop out and that it would not hurt. Well more than 2 minutes later the package was delievered!!!! Then Kaysen proclaimed, "I love Heavenly Father cause he helped me get my poop out!" I just thought that was the cutest and funniest story. See even the little and dirtiest of jobs aren't too small for God. I don't know if I'll send that one into the friend. I just can't see them publishing it.

Getting Better

I am happy to report that kaysen is doing much better. He slept good last night and woke up at 5 am saying "Momma I'm so hungary!" So I got him a bisquit and he watched cartoons all morning. I'll take a 5am wake up any day over how he was yesterday. We've just been taking it easy today and doing things that require little effort like going to the library and napping.

Kaysen has been super hungary today too. Which is great. He ate his bisquit early and then breakfast. Then at 10:30 he ate a "snack" of fried chicken and goldfish. Then he ate lunch at 12:30 of soup! He is deffinatley making up for lost meals yesterday. He keeps bugging me to get him treats like doughnuts, candy, crabby patty gummys, and anything else sweet. I think maybe tonight we'll get him something since he's been feeling so good all day and since he's ate good too.

Right now were dealing with trying to go his first #2 after being dehydrated. Let me just say that is not fun. We've already tried 2 different times for about 40 minutes each time. I think we'll get some prune juice or something tonight. I never really thought about constipation as a side effect of dehydration but it makes sense.

So were going to see the pediatric neurologist next wed. I was pretty upset that they couldn't get us in earlier after all we went through last night. I just hope he doesn't have any more bad episodes before then especially since this weekend is halloween and he'll be super excited (which can sometimes cause episodes). John is going to try to leave school early so he can come with us. I just can't handle stuff like that by myself.

Today was a hard day for me. I think that yesterday I had to be strong and so didn't really let any emotions in. Today I broke down. Not because I'm worried really but because I guess I didn't get a chance to let my emotions out yesterday. So I had a good cry and held kaysen close.
Thanks everyone for you kind words. I will for sure keep you posted as things progress.

Hospital Stay :(

Well today was a challenging day to say the least. I dropped kaysen off at school at 9am and he was perfectly fine. He had been running around with the dog in the morning. He didn't eat much that is normal. Well I got a call at 10am that Kaysen was sick and had already thrown up twice. So I figured it was just a normal episode of cyclic vomitting. I went to get him and found him completley pale hugging the mini toliet at day care vomitting into it. I gave him a zophran which usually stops his attacks.
For the next two hours he was completley pale. I could not get him to respond to me either. He wouldn't wake up and he was completley limp. The only time he would move is when he would throw up every 15 minutes. So I knew this wasn't a "normal" episode so I decided to take him to the dr. Unfortuantley I couldn't get him into his normal dr. so I took him to urgent care.
When I got there it was bad!!!!!! I had to carry him and couldn't get him to even sit up on his own. By the time the dr. saw him, his eyes were rolled back in his head and his mouth was open. He was completley flushed and unresponsive. The dr. decided that he needed to be taken to the hospital by ambulance and then admitted. They started an iv at the urgent care and luckily when they poked him he responded and cried some.
After the iv he started to look a lot better. The ambulance took him to the hospital and the dr. at the hospital came to us right away. They did all sorts of blood tests and switched some different fluid into his iv and gave him more zophran through iv. Luckily he stopped vomitting. After being on iv for several hours they did another dehyradtion test. He wasn't where they wanted him to be but since he was no longer throwing up things were looking better. They were fifty fifty if he should be stay over night. I wanted to wait longer and let him eat some crackers and drink something to see if he could keep it down and see how he improved. He still was super weak and sleepy. So that was our compromise. After another two hours he kept down 3 crackers and some sprite (heavy eater I know).
So after two hours I felt he was well enough that I could take care of him at home. So we left in the evening after a extremley long day. He fell asleep the whole car ride home. Since he didn't eat all day and was throwing up and all I had all day was a donut I sent john to get kfc. He was excited to eat and I made him a plate. He stood up to eat and grabbed his head and collapsed crying his head hurt and he no longer wanted to eat anything. We finally managed to get him to eat a popsicle laying down. After that he decided he was tired and ready for bed. We gave him another zophran and his regular medicine and put him to bed.
So they wanted to do a CT while we were at the hospital but I oppted out. The dr.s at the hospital were in contact with kaysens pediatric neurologist and he wants to see him asap and most likely he'll be getting a MRI soon so I decided why put him through more than he needs.
Well thats where we are at right now. He is sleeping and seemed a million times better than this morning but is still really sick. Lucikly hes keeping liquids down and that is huge.
So I'll let you all know how he is tomorrow and how the neurologist goes. What a day! I'm ready for bed!

Bad Decisions :(

Well as a lot of you know kaysen has a condition called cylic vomitting syndrome. The jist of it is that he throws up A LOT and OFTEN. Since he throws up so much he has a really bad gag reflex. He can't not look at poop with out throwing up even his own poop. Even if he sees mud and thinks its poop for a minute he'll throw up. Well I don't know what I was thinking. Oh wait yes I do,... I wasn't thinking! I (as many slaters do) have gas from time to time. Ok I have it a lot and yesterday it was particuarly bad. Growing up with many brothers and sisters it got farted on a lot. It was all in good fun though. I was thinking about these found memories and felt bad because kaysen doesn't have any brothers and sisters to tease him properly. Well at this point is when the bad decision took place. I decided to do what any good mother would do and fart on her child. As I began to laugh kaysen said "Oh mama you really stink" and then started gagging. At that moment I knew what I had done but couldn't stop laughing. So... John began to chastise me as kaysen began to vomit. Oh man it was really really funny. I know most proper moms wouldn't do such things but thank heavens I'm not a proper mom. Wheres the fun in that? Plus John is more the proper one so I just even things out. Well everything is back to normal and kaysen has no hard feelings against me. I went to bed laughing last night and I still break up laughing thinking about it. But I think next time I will try to think my actions through a little bit, but just a little.

Tylenol Recall

Hey everyone I just wanted to let everyone know that there has been a recall on all liquid childrens and infants tylenol produced from april 08 to june 08. I guess there was a unused portion of one ingredient that did not meet all quality standards so there are recalling the rest as a precautionary measure. Although I'm sure me and everyone else probably already used it since it was made over a year ago. Any ways to find out if your bottle is being recalled you can look at the lot # and then go to tylenol.com or call 1-800-962-5357 8-8 monday-friday. Also i have a list of all the recalled products lot #'s that kaysens school gave me. So if you are worried just drop me a comment on what the lot # is and I'll let you know. All of the recalled products lot #s start with SB, SC, SD, SE, or SF. None of them start with SJ (which is what I have at home). Hopefully this is helpful.

Need a new look?

Hey everyone I just wanted to let you know that I am running an offer at my new salon. The deal is you get 15$ off any color service on a tuesday for a first time client. So anyone who hasn't seen me in my new salon would be a first time client. Just call 314-997-5355 to book an appointment and make sure to mention that you are a first time client and saw the deal for 15$ off a color service online. Also make sure you book it with me. Here are some prices of the different services:
Haircut- 35
Haircut w/ blowdry- 55
All over color- 45
Full Foil- 85
(if you want more than one color foiled in add 10$ for each additional color)
Partial Foil- 65-75
And other services can be priced when you call in or contact me.
I look forward to seeing you guys.
The address of the salon is 10411 Clayton Road in frontenanc. We are in the La Chateau Village just west of the Hilton.

Life is GOOOOODDDD!

*Inside the talking cavern cave at silver dollar city in Branson

*At the dixie stampede at branson

*Our Hotel room in Branson

*Even our long drive to colorado can't get me down. I told you I was happy.

*My hot husband driving the car to colorado. Don't worry he put it on auto piolt.

We'll fall is on its way in the STL and we are loving life. John is off and running in his third year of school. He is really excited because this year he is doing half clinical work and half book work. He gets to pick his rotations for his 4th year this next week so he is pretty excited about that too.

Kaysen is loving school of coarse. He is in the "Pink" room now which for those of you who are unlearned in the ways of preschool, he is the big man on campus. He also started soccer two weeks ago and it is so cute. He is really good and loves it. That makes me excited because I used to play soccer (although I wasn't ever really good). He told me he wants to play scoccer and do swimming lessons. It was like music to my ears. My boy is taking after me. I always thought he would be a swimmer because when I was pregnant with him he was always swimming and I'm pretty sure he mastered the butterfly stroke while still in the womb.

I am loving my new job. It is wonderful to be able to go to work and not feel stressed and to have a different agenda each day. I am very happy right now in life and things seem to be going our way.

We've have a had a really busy summer and what seems like a busy year too. I have missed seeing my friends as much as I used to but hopefully I can get back into the swing of things and attend more outings and blog reguarly. I entered a contest called mommy madness stl. They pick 6 busy moms to drive around either a chevy traverse or a chevy equinox for 4 weeks and blog about it and they also give you gas money. I am really excited. I hope I win. How awesome would that be. We could do so much with a vehicle that big even if it is for a short time.

I am going to post some photos of our summer too. Hopefully within the week I'll get up some video of kaysen's soccer.

August 09

Well I lost part of my wedding ring today. It has always been really lose and especially this past year. Today it just slipped off and I didn't even notice. At least it was the band and not the engagement part. Oh well crap happens and for some reason it likes to happen to me a lot.
On a good note my job is going great! I really enjoy the people I work with and the clients I work on.
We went to colorado with johns family in july and it was so beautiful.
John is going to start school next week and kaysen has moved into the pink room at preschool which is the big kid room. He is so excited.
So funny thing just happened as I'm writing this. I must be completley crazy because I always wear both rings, always. I even "remember" putting it on this morning. Well john just found my lost ring in my jewlery box. Man I am now officially crazy. I remember putting it on. Which makes me wonder what other things do I "remember" doing that never ever happened. Hmmm this could be bad.

July 09

Well its been a long time since I've updated the blog. I usually just do facebook cause its so much easier. I graduated June 24th. I got a job yesterday at the Frontenac salon and spa. I'll start the 22nd of July. We went to Branson to celebrate me graduating, fathers day, and our family vacation for the year. It was just a weekend trip but we had so much fun. We'll for sure do it again next year.
John is in clinic every thursday this summer and loves it. He starts his third year in the fall and is really excited to be working on patients and not doing as much book work. Kaysen loves school and is so smart. He amazes us everyday by how smart he is. He can count over 100 all by himself. He also is learning to spell. He can spell all his friends names, his name, our names, and is always saying letters together and asking us what they spell. For example "Mom what does KQSTRQB spell?" Usually he doesn't ever make a word but at least he is learning. He does always through a Q in there though. I tried to let him know that q doesn't really show up that much but he sure likes q.
We got a puppy in may. It was a suprise mothers day present for me. His name is pokey and he is a bichon friese-shih tzu mix. They call it a teddy bear puppy because it looks just like a teddy bear. He is super cute and fun. Although he is having a hard time with potty training. He was doing really well but we boarded him when we went to branson and he kind of forgot. He should learn just in time for us to go to colorado with johns family and then we'll have to start all over again.
We are going to Colorado mid july with johns family for a week. It should be really really fun.
I take my written test next week and then my practical test july 20th then start my job the 22nd.
Well thats it for now. I'll probably post again in another 3 months. If you want to hear more you can check me or john out on facebook.

Easter Sunday!

Well today was a great day. We woke up to Kaysen at 7am saying "The Easter Bunny Came!" He ran downstairs and got his basket he made at school to collect all the easter eggs. At the end of the hunt he found his basket. The easter bunny left jelly beans, fruit tootsie rolls, a big bunny shaped sugar cookie, a book, a monsters vs. aliens shirt, and a blue blob toy from monsters vs. aliens. What a good easter bunny. Kaysen was happy the bunny knew not to leave any chocolate since it triggers his cyclic vomitting.
We went to church but it was stake/regional conference so it didn't start until 10 and was only 2 hours long. It was neat because it was for all the midwest states so some general authorites talked and it was broadcasted by satelite.
We made our easter meal at lunch and grilled filet minon, had shrimp, and rolls. Then the best part of the day was sunday nap!!!!!
John had to go do some school stuff so Kaysen and I planted a small planter of flowers for the pourch and then I installed a garage door keypad opener all by myself!
We also watch space buddies and let me just say first class. Cinematics at its best!
We had a great day and it was a good mix of the real reason for easter and the fun holiday side.

Round 3

I advanced to round 3 of the junior style stars competiton today! There are about 77 left from the over 200 enteries. I am excited but also super nervous! They changed the date of when the winner should be announced from april 15th to sometime in the end of april. So I guess that means I'll have to wait longer but it also means more time for me to still be in the competition. I am super excited!

ADVANCEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just wanted to let everyone know I advanced to the next round of competition. They cut it from like 200 to 120 or so. That is still a lot of people but I'm pretty excited!!!! You can check it out at http://www.juniorstylestars.com/ my number is 9139.

Junior Style Stars Competition

My photo has finally been posted on the junior style stars website. To check it out go to www.juniorstylestars.com then click on 2008/2009 competition photos gallery 10 and my number is 9139. You can follow the judging online too. The judging has just begun. I wish you could see the back and sides of my entery but they only posted 1 photo but the judges will judge from all 4.

It's Been Awhile

Well lets just say its been a really long while. I have been using facebook mostly because it is so easy and fast to load photos on. But I will try to post some things here to for those of you who don't have face book. We moved at the end of January to a bigger place. We just really really needed the space. We were all so frustrated in that tiny house, we were on top of each other, and it was chronically messy. Now we are so happy and I feel like my house is actually clean.
Christmas and birthdays were all great. Kaysen is now 4, I'm 25, and John is 29!!!! We went to my sister Jenn's house in Buffalo, NY for a few days during christmas break. It was cold but fun. We went to nigara fall on the canada side too.
I entered a national bridal competition that judging starts mid march and ends mid april. After March 15th you can check it out online at www.juniorstylestars.com my number is 9139.
Schools are all going good. Life is great. I'll try to come back to the fold but we are all really busy. I'll post some photos too. Ok I just tried to post photos and it is being difficult so photos are to be postponed. But your welcome to view them on facebook and at the junior style stars site.