PUPPIES!

Yes everyone... I am going to be a "Grandma". My little Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Lexie is going to have puppies! Judging from the ultrasound yesterday she's having 6 puppies! Pictures to come later :)

Boston

We're back with a super happy energetic pink pig! You can read Ally's care page for details about her surgery.

Overall we had a great trip to Boston. I got to do a little but of shopping on Thursday afternoon with my favorite 2 boys. We did a lot of walking but that was okay since I spent 8 straight hours in a hospital bed with Ally on Friday. After her surgery she had to lay flat for 6 hours and keep her legs completely still. The first hour was rough. The mixture of anesthesia, versaid, and morphine was not a good combo. She wasn't Ally. She screamed, kicked, tried to pull her IV's out, ect; then she FINALLY passed out and slept for about 2 hours. When she woke up she was back to her normal self for the most part...the anesthesia made her sick on her stomach but other than that she did amazing. She slept on and off for the next couple hours. We watched Barbie Swan Lake about 10 times lol.

By Friday night she was allowed up and so we went exploring. I spent the night with her since I usually am the one who sleeps with her anyway. Everyone thought she'd be most comfortable if I were there so we had an adventure down to get her chest x-ray then to see the fish in the lobby. Nothing too interesting to write about which in my opinion is a good thing! Everything went completely normal...

Saturday morning both IV's were out, bandages changed and we weer back at the hotel room by 10:00 AM. Then on a plane back to Lexington by 2:30.

Today's she's back to her normal self. She doesn't even seem to be sore! Definitely a brave little pig if you ask me!

She's currently in the playroom trying to send Cooper to time out...

Not the most interesting post...but definitely a happy one! I'll write a more detailed post about our trip when I'm not playing referee.

3...and 1/4

When you're little, birthdays are a big deal. If you don't understand how big of a deal then you were obviously never or kid...or your parents didn't love you enough to make your birthdays absolutely amazing. There's a reason you never meet a 6 year old or a 8 year old. They're always 6 and 1/2 or almost 9. This is because there's nothing more exciting than getting older, right? Wrong. There is nothing more exciting than cake, presents, and an entire room of people paying attention to you. So obviously what little girl would love birthdays the very most? Ally of course.

She's been planning her three and one fourth birthday ever since she realized we would be celebrating her brothers 16th birthday when he arrived from North Carolina. She suddenly realized that her birthday was gone. It was someone else's turn. And her pig cake would not be returning.

I'll let you imagine for yourself the screaming, crying, begging, and random fits that were thrown because she wanted her "birthday back". Luckily she isn't one to dwell on the word "can't". In this case it came in the phrase "You can't have your birthday back, not until March 21st". She Pink Pig got smart. Obviously her birthday wasn't going to come back... at least not until we informed her it was finally March 21st.

So she became extremely generous...and offered to share her brothers birthday with him. See, now this is where I know we have obviously done an amazing job raising her. Sharing skills are intact. She even offered to let him have a bite of his cake (a pig one of course).

And so, being the little Princess she is (and the fact that she is going to have hear surgery this week) everyone caved. Pink Pig got her birthday back. Pig cupcakes and all. And as of today, she can officially say that she is 3 and 1/4 year olds.

Seriously though, you only turn 3 and 1/4 once.

Ally's Care Pages!

Hey everyone,

Here is the link to Ally's Care Page. I'll most likely put whatever updates are on the Care Page on this blog too. But just in case, you can keep on with her progress on that site!

Thanks!

I highly recommend this book

"Little Pink Pup" by Johanna Kerby is absolutely adorable. We bought it just because it was about a dog mommy adopting a baby pig. Ally's favorite two animals so we knew we couldn't go wrong. But it's actually a great way to explain to kids (and baby pigs) to be accepting of everyone, no matter what they look like. Definitely a must buy!

Click here for more details.

Regrets

Since when are there rules about how much time you spend with your siblings? Just saying, when was the last time someone insinuated that you spend TOO much time with your brothers or sisters? I’ve dealt with this since Ally and Cooper were born.

To start, personally I don’t think there is anything more important than family. Especially your parents and your siblings. I can honestly say that I have amazing parents. I’m not embarrassed to say that my mom is my best friend. Both of my parents do what needs to be done for us kids and support us. So many things will come and go throughout life but it is your family that gets you through the change. It’s your family that helps you move on and become a great person. At least that’s how I see my family. I can’t think of one single thing that I couldn’t go to them about. Especially my Mom.

On the topic of siblings, Courtney, Michael, Ally, and Cooper are going to be my brothers and sisters for the rest of my life. FOREVER. How many things can you say that about? So why is it that some people think that I should be a part time sister with them? “As long as you are there for the important stuff like dance recitals, birthdays and baseball games” they say.

I was involved in every single aspect of Court and Michael’s youth…obviously the birthdays, baseball games, recitals, yes. But that isn’t what makes you close as siblings. It’s the time you spend in normal routine everyday life that makes you close. It’s the time you spend pretending, laughing, even fighting that gain love and trust. Talking, telling stories, realizing all that you have in common because you are family.

Courtney’s favorite color when she was 3 was yellow. She loved horses and pretending she was Megan from My Little Pony. When we would play house she hated having kids (baby dolls) but I would guilt her into having them telling her that they would be sad. She would then try to stuff them all into her dress like she was pregnant. I once convinced her that there was a little girl stuck in the drain pipes in the empty lot beside out house and that she needed to throw food down for her. We used to try and save earthworms by throwing them into water. When the sun would set at dusk and get really big and orange we would call it “Big Baby”. We used to watch ER every morning at 10 and 11 on TNT while drinking soup. (She only ever had chicken noodle and I had tomato). After we had seen every episode of ER twice we switched to Dawson’s Creek on TBS.

Michael’s favorite color was green (and still is). He was obsessed with Kirby’s Dream Land and Super Mario (Although he hated Mario, but loved Luigi). We once caught the toaster on fire trying to make cheese toast for our parents. I convinced him that there was a baby frog that lived outside our house named baby Fred and that he had to pee in the yard to make Fred happy. We have hilarious inside jokes about “calk” and “string cheese”. We use to go on Pokemon Journey’s through the apartment complex we lived in. He was Ash, I was Misty, and Courtney was either Sabrina or Erica. His favorite Pokemon was Raichu. The only thing he every REALLY wanted in life was a Vacuum Cleaner Choo Choo Train.

I did not learn any of this from birthdays or baseball games or dance recitals. These random little details are what have made them into who they are today. Tons of people have watched Courtney dance in a recital or Michael play T-ball in kindergarten. But that isn’t them. Everyone knows that Courtney wants to be an anthropologist and that Michael wants to be a physicist. But I know why.

This is what is important. Realizing that boys will come and go, but your little sister will only be convinced that she is a real life pig for a short time. School isn’t going to disappear but your baby brother will only like to dance to Barney in the playroom for a few more years. That is why I spend the time with these kids. I did it with Courtney and Michael and I’ll do it with them too.

Ally’s favorite color is pink but lately she’s been pretty into orange. She wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up. I think she will be. Her current goals in life include swimming with pigs, cleaning the oil off of the poor animals in the oil spill, and managing to not poop in the potty. Her favorite movie tonight is Lady and the Tramp 2. Her name changes every 5 minutes but it is ALWAYS “Baby Pig” before she falls asleep. She likes to snuggle. She’s afraid of trees, the waterfall in her pool and potty’s without flushers. She wants to go to New York City and see Elephaba dance on stage. She secretly loves witches. She likes Disney animals better than Disney Princesses. Her favorite books are Eloise goes to Hollywood and Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy. She likes me to tell her stories about daily life and often says things like “Sessa, you tell me a story about when I used the little potty at the mall and you was so proud of me”. She cries when I tell her stories about me going home to NC without her. Her absolute favorite animals are pigs.

Cooper’s favorite color is red (that’s the crayon or marker he always grabs). His favorite show is Mickey Mouse Club House but he really only pays attention to the final song, Hot Diggity Dog. He thinks Mickey Mouse’s name is Hot Dog. He will sit through an entire episode of Barney. He will watch horse racing on TV for hours. He calls his Pacy a “Ba” and his bottle a “Baba”. He loves to go into the cabinet and get the dogs treats. He is terrified of the ride on dinosaur in the playroom. He loves gluing things. He doesn’t like to read books. Bella is his favorite dog even though she is the meanest. His favorite things to play in the playroom are Wonderpets, Yo Gabba Gabba, and balls. When he is mad he puckers his lips and pulls your hair. Horses are his favorite animals. He calls them “Gee ups” or “Neighs”. He loves trains, especially blue ones. He colors with his left hand but eats with his right.

I will never regret the extra time it will take me in school. I will never regret not being dependent on a boyfriend at this point in my life. I will never regret not going out every night. I will never regret transferring out here.

I will regret waking up one day and realizing that I don’t know these kids. I don’t want to look back and regret not being their sister…their real sister who did silly dances with them, that knew all of their favorite TV shows, foods, colors, names, toys, and spent forever trying to figure out how to make chipmunk ears that looked real.

So those of you who think I am “missing out” on life and I’m going to regret it one day? I wont. Will you?

Why is it...

Why is it that things like this:

only happen on days like this:

She's lucky I love her enough to hold her down and scrub her pretty little face.

Otherwise Pink Pig's first ever dance rehearsal went AMAZING. I've never been so proud. She wore her costume without throwing a temper fit that it itched. She went backstage all by herself without needing Mommy or Sessa. She got up on stage. She screamed "Hi Sessa!" as loud as she possibly could into the audience. I obviously stood up and screamed "Hi Ally" right back. She danced. She smiled. She walked off stage the way she was supposed too.

Then she threw her temper fit. Why? Because they did not let her dance to Taylor Swift. Not that I blame her though. T. Swift is much better dance music than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star...

Back from Disney!

Minus Courtney and Michael :(

So we finally got back from Disney this morning after a cancelled flight with 2 extremely cranky children. Cranky. Tired. Whiney. Screaming. Yelling. Hitting. 4 hours of sleep. Just a few words that described our morning.

Disney itself was a blast of course. Cooper seemed to enjoy it the most. Obviously Ally loved it but it was Cooper whose eyes lit up at the sight of Mickey Mouse. I never thought I'd enjoy watching a little boy play on a water deck more than I would enjoy riding a roller coaster. He hated the characters when they got close to him, but he definitely admired from afar. And other than the bus rides we had to take to and from the hotel, universal, ect; (he has issues when he isn't in a carseat) I can't imagine a better behaved little boy.

Ally is going through a serious stubborn phase fit for a 13 year old. She apparently took the princess attitude literally and wouldn't speak to the commoners (aka everyone who wasn't Sessa, Courty, Mommy or Daddy). The Disney cast members are also sweet enough to refer to every little girl as a Princess. What little girl wouldn't love this? Ally of course. Her names for the trip were "Pig", "Lady Lexie", "Pink Stitch" and best of all... "Princess Scout" which is what she made all of the fairy godmothers at Bippity Boppity Boutique refer to her as. Scout, as in our boy Chihuahua. We definitely got some strange looks but it was worth it. She had a blast, dressed up like Princess Tiana, rode every ride she was allowed on, and bought everything she could ever want.

I also for the first time realized that I am getting old. I actually WANTED to go back to the room in the middle of the day to make a nap. It was really hot. Like 90 degrees hot. And it rained a lot. Have I mentioned how much I like rain? It cools everything down. And thanks to my Brazillion Blowout, I love it even more.

It's bitter sweet being home because I know the next time we get on a plane, we won't be going somewhere fun. We'll be going to Boston. I've wanted to go to Boston ever since the song "Boston" by Augustana came out. I even saw them at House of Blues in LA and joked with my mom for a month that we should go to Boston.

Now we're going and I'm dreading it. We leave on June 23rd for Pink Pig to get her heart fixed. For those of you who may not know, she has two small holes in her heart along with Pulmonary Stenosis. They are going to fix her two holes with a catheter through the artery in her leg. I get a pit in my stomach just typing it. It's nothing "serious". It isn't a big deal, at least that's what all the websites say when you google it. There are so many worse things she could have, I should probably be grateful that this is supposed to be so simple. And I am. I just wish that it were nothing and that she didn't have to go through this. I'm not a religious person, but please pray. Pray, wish, cross your fingers, toes, and everything else that everything goes perfect with this surgery. Please pray that she isn't in pain, and that she understands the best she can how much we love her and that we don't want this anymore than she does. I wish she were old enough to understand that her Sessa would change places with her in a second so that she didn't have to do this.

The other night she asked me to tell her what it was like when she was born. I told her like I always do about how she was in NICU, how the chihuahuas were so excited to meet her, and obviously explained how excited I was to see her and how much I love her. This time she randomly asked me afterwards "Sessa? Was your Sessa so happy for you when you was born?" I explained that I didn't have a Sessa, because I was Mommy's first baby. She looked extremely sad for a second. Sad and confused. Finally she said "Sessa, you don't have a Sessa?" and a tear rolled down her little cheek. I explained more throughly that I was the first and I didn't have a sister until Courtney was born. She thought for a minute and finally smiled and said "Sessa, I'm your Sessa. We played together in Mommy's centa (placenta) so you don't be sad. We holded hands. I love you"

I've told my mom a million times that I can't imagine loving my own children more than I love Ally and Cooper. And I honestly can't. They are my babies. I've been there for every milestone, every Birthday, Christmas, scraped knee, leg limps, blood work and split open chins.

So I'm going to be there to hold her hand through this surgery too. I'm going to play with her and do my job as her Sessa to keep her mind off of everything. So please pray for me too, and for my Mom and George because I know if I'm this stressed and worried they most definitely are too. Thanks :)

On a happier note, more Disney pictures and stories to come as soon as I upload them!