she's clever, folks.

My mom was joking, my brother won't really have a z shaped scar. Here's Ava's first bow...
c

one-armed brothers, shots, and rainy days

My brother will have a z shaped scar when this is all said and done. He had surgery yesterday to repair a torn rotater cuff. It was torn 270 out of 360 degrees. Ouch. So I spent the day at the outpatient surgicenter, waiting for him to get out. I had to sit there and listen to the story of the pregnant girl who was murdered over and over... It was either that story or about how the Lake Tahoe area is disappearing into fire. Needless to say I was tired of hearing all of the same details over and over, so I took the time to finish reading my fascinating Fantasy Lit. book. Let me just tell you, I think Kahlan went a little overboard when she painted all of those weird sybols on her face and went on a rampage. And Richard really had me freaked out there for a minute. But, no worries, it all ended up, though rather quickly and without much detail, well. I have to agree with my teacher that this author is definitely one of those people who writes themself into the story- and lives out some very strange fantasies.
And, as if my life couldn't get any more exciting with all of this wizard reading that I'm doing, I had to take my baby to get shots today. The events are as follows:

-Took her in and had her weighed. She weighed fifteen pounds and fifteen ounces. (I thought she was getting hevier!).
-Talked to the doctor about her skin (she's got a little rash), spitting up, and whether or not to start feeding her solid food.
-Re-dressed her and played with her on the table that has the paper on it. She kept kicking her feet because she liked how it sounded, crunchy.
-Nurse came in and administered shot number one.
-Ava's face turned three shades of red, her eyes immediately burst forth with tears, and she did the no-breathing-cry.
-We paid and left.

Now, for those of you who don't know what the no-breathing-cry is, let me explain. As soon as she realized that there was a pinching, stinging sensation, she drew in the deepest breath she could, screamed that one out and refused to take another. For a good five seconds. I almost blew in her face to get her to breathe again. This was the crying method of both of my little brothers, and it used to scare the crap out of me. This one means "Ok, you jerk. Whatever it was that you just did to me was REALLY mean, so I'm going to show you how pissed I am!" She's already a master at it...

If only she realized that it took all I had not to cry right along with her.

c

come on people

Ok, I'm going to stand on my soap box for a moment. I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but people are murdering people way too much these days. I know, that sounds kind of dumb. But it's as if being a mom has made me more aware of the things that are going on around me. First there was the little boy who died here in Tulsa because the home daycare person that was taking care of him (I say "taking care" but this was hardly that) duct taped his hands and feet and put tape over his mouth. She's being tried for murder. Then, another mom somewhere else decided it would be a great idea to tape her son's pacifier to his face. Apparently he was spitting it out over and over so she thought she would help him keep it in. He died. He was four months old, the same age as Ave. Then, a man decided to kill his nine-month-pregnant ex-girlfriend. He was a police officer. He was even assigned to the search. They had named the baby Chloe- now she'll never get a chance to live. It just sickens me. I feel like this world is not going to last much longer. I mean, how could it. At some point, God is going to say- ENOUGH! This is All I CAN TAKE! And be done with it.
Forgive me my little rant, but I'm sick of people killing people. Especially children. I'm going to go kiss my baby now.
c

i'm a horrible mother

Today, for the first time, I realized that I can't be too prideful about my new-mom skills. Last night, I came home from class and found that Ava was still asleep from a nap that started at 6:15. This was great because she had been fighting it all day and really needed to get some good rest. She slept until 9:00, so I went in and got her to feed her. She barely even woke up, so I put her right back down after she ate. No big deal, right? She slept all night and Ididn't hear from her until about 6:45 this morning. This is the sad part.
I went into her room and found her on her tummy (she's started rolling over from back to front, but can't get back over) in a near-puddle of pee. She was soaked, the sheets were soaked, her blanket was soaked. Then it struck me that I didn't change her diaper before I put her back down for the night. Basically she hadn't had her diaper changed in over 12 hours!!! You can only imagine the feeling of grief that washed over me. I felt HORRIBLE!!! My poor sweet baby, laying there in her own pee!
Needless to say, I stripped off her clothes, stripped off the sheets, threw them in the washing machine and her into the tub. Today was her first 7 am bath. Bless her little heart.

She immediately forgave me, and had a blast splashing in the tub which completely soaked me.

Baby payback.

cass

here's her first swim

this one is a little serious...

Ok. I know it's been a while since I posted anything. And, granted, I've been very busy. But I think there are other reasons that I haven't had anything to say. One is that I didn't want to just put on a happy face and type some fluffy stuff from my day. As you can see, I've been doing a little bit of soul searching and I'm coming up with some stuff that I didn't expect. And, while this may appear one day to the people I'll be talking about- I have given up on caring. If they see it, they see it.



I'm realizing a lot about trust, intentions, and taking people at their word.



For the one or two of you that actually read this thing, you probable are aware of a bit of my family drama. For those of you who may stumble upon this and not know, let me give you a brief overview.



*My dad was married twice before my mom. He had a baby with his second wife. Lindsey is her name and I didn't find out about her until I was eleven years old. That's a whole story by itself.

*My mom remarried, divorced and remarried again. The man that she is married to now is wonderful. A long-time family friend, and someone I consider to be a great man for my mom.

*My dad met a woman, married and divorced again.

*In 1999 he was diagnosed with advanced aggressive prostate cancer. It went into remission, and has now returned.



Ok, this is really brief and leaves out a lot of the story. But, I feel a bit of hesitance about putting all of the details out there. I'm still new at this whole blogging thing and I'm not sure I'm ready to lay my whole life open for anyone to see... That being said, I would still like to vent for a moment about how I'm feeling about some things that are going on in my crazy family world right now.



People are foolish, selfish, greedy and cruel.



Now, I know that sounds harsh. But based on the way that some people are acting in the current situation- it's nothing less than the truth. It is a hard thing to wake up one morning and have a realization that some people didn't care as much about you as you always thought they had. I know this is all really vauge, but the people who know me understand. And those who don't know me well enough to know everything I'm talking about are free to call me. I'd love to tell the story. In fact, that's one thing that I'm thinking about doing. Writing a book and telling the story to everyone, so that someone out there can breathe deeper knowing there's someone that they can relate to. But I guess I better feel comfortable enough to put it all on a blog before I publish the story! Oh well, baby steps.

I'm off to class to talk about wizards.

cass

mmmmm.... wizards

So, as my few (possible only one) readers know, I've been through the emotional ringer over the last couple of weeks. Here's a brief update:
1. Dad is now home again and breathing normally, thank God.
2. He just finished a five day radiation treatment, which involved me driving about fifty miles a day to get him there and home.
3. My class started this week.

Ok, there is more to be said about the last item on that list. This is no ordinary class. This is Fantasy Literature. While trying not to sound judgemental I have to say that there is a certain type of person that takes this class. Besides myself and Leslie, who need it for an elective, only people who spend hours playing online games or reading long series of books about dragons, magic, or witches have enrolled in this class. Now, I have to admit that there are some books that I love that technically fall into this category. Chronicles of Narnia and some of Ray Bradbury's stories are things that I love. But this class is going to be interesting. We've only had two classes and already we've watched a movie about "ringers", people who are obsessed with Lord of the Rings. This is serious, folks, one lady sold her house to travel to New Zealand for the premier of the last movie... Wow.

Needless to say, its exhausting...