Almost 11 months...

Tomorrow, Brooke will be 11 months.  This has been the fastest 11 months of my life!!  Where has time gone.  I guess as I get older, time will continue to fly by way more quickly than I would like it to but I can't stop it.

I don't know all of her stats but I'm guessing she is weighing about 22 lbs.  She is wearing 12 month clothes and size 3 diapers but we as soon as we finish the ones we have now, we'll be moving on to size 4.  She is an eating machine!!  She loves to eat and loves to feed herself.  We are trying to finish up all of the baby food.  She will still eat it but I can tell it's not her favorite.  We've started whole milk already and she loves it!!  I feel like transitioning solely to a sippy cup will be fairly easy.  She only takes two bottles a day now.  One in the day and one before bed.  She's only napping once a day mostly sometimes we can sneak in a second, depends on how busy the day has been.  She finally crawling on all fours.  She started doing that at 10 months and she has begun cruising around.  I feel like she'll be walking by the time she's one.  She is still sleeping well.  Thank the good Lord above, all of my children have been great sleepers!! Brooke still loves her pink blanket that her Mawmaw crocheted for her and still takes a paci although she's not obsessed with it.  She's saying of the consonant sounds and can say the words "clap, Mama, dada, caire(Claire), cat, lala(Lauren)."  She likes to point and make a high pitch noise.  She is so sweet all the time!!  Love, love, love her!!

That's pretty much it about sweet girl.  I'll have to post another time about my 10 year anniversary and our new addition, Charlie!

Where Have You Been?

It's been almost 4 months since I last blogged. That is a long time. Everyday life has seemed to completely take over so I haven't really had the opportunity or yet even the time to blog.

This winter, if we can even call it that, was riddled with sickness here. I felt like I took Brooke to the doctor every week for a month starting the last week in January. We had a stomach bug, viral infections, croup, strep throat, the crud...you name it. I was so tired of my children being sick I just prayed for spring and now it's here!!!

Lauren and Claire are doing awesome. Lauren is doing really well in school. She is growing up way too fast and by that I mean, I'm not liking the 13 year old attitude that sometimes springs out of my 7 1/2 year old's mouth. We are currently working on that, please say a prayer for me:). Claire turned 5 in March and had two birthday parties this year, both of which were a smashing success. She was sooo ready to turn 5 and now she is ready to turn 9. For some reason she is just ready to grow up (much to her mother's chagrin.) We had the dreadful 5 year checkup as well, this one I had been dreading as much as she was. It went well, she didn't kick the nurse while she was administering her shots. However, there was a lot of screaming and crying. But, overall, it was good and she got a new outfit for her Hello Kitty and ice cream.

Brooke is growing by leaps and bounds. She turned 10 months on Tuesday and that child within the last couple of weeks has begun to pull up, talk and start cruising. Ugh, not ready for any of that!! Although, I will have to say she is not growing up quite as fast as her middle big sister. Claire was walking at 10 months. She is a precious baby always so sweet. She army crawls and is fast!! She is only taking 3 sometimes 2 bottles a day now, she prefers to eat real food. Girl can scarf down 4 chicken nuggets in a heartbeat. We have to buy 3 happy meals now instead of 2:). I'm so excited, only 4 more weeks of pumping and then we get to start whole milk!!! This cow is ready to stop!! I'm so proud of myself for hanging in there but pumping for this long has been a struggle. I'm so ready to not be attached to that pump!!!!!

We are busy right now with Easter activities at school and church. I'm working an extra day now and Mark is out of town A LOT. The Magic McCain's are hanging in there!!!

Math...ugh

The class I despised the most going through school was math. I disliked it from the get go. For some reason, numbers just don't mesh well in my head. And word problems, oh my lord, I think I would rather get shot in the foot then to try and figure out a word problem. To this day, I still count with my fingers and need a calculator to do long division. Not a math person.

Lauren, I'm afraid, as developed my dislike for math as well. The past two afternoons she has come home with addition and subtraction facts and it is like pulling eye teeth to get this child to finish. Yesterday, there was nothing but tears and drama which ended up with her not being able to watch tv and going to bed early. Today, it was again, tears and drama, with her mouth being washed out with soap for being sassy and smart-mouthed (sorry for those who don't believe in that kind of punishment, I DO NOT TOLERATE sassiness at all!!!!) I am beginning to dread homework and I know its only going to get worse!!

I feel like I need to go back to elementary school just so I can learn math all over again and have more patience with her. Lauren is so tenderhearted and takes everything to heart. She just gets overwhelmed and feels like she can't do it and that is exactly how I was. I try so hard to not get frustrated with her but the constant whining and crying and DRAMA is hard to look past. (I know, its only going to get worse and I have 3 daughters!!)

Doing this little bit of math with her reaffirms my dislike for the subject, almost a hatred for it and I just wish that I could let someone else do that homework with her but since the hubs doesn't always get home at a timely manner, it falls on my shoulders. Today needs to be the last day I let my frustrations come out and I lose my patience. I need to be more compassionate with my girl and try to teach her.

I can't wait until we get into multiplication fact and fractions......;)

I've been itching to tell.....

In my last post, I eluded to some things that were going on here at the Magic McCain's and that I would post about it later, so here it is.

Back in the beginning of October one morning I was getting ready to fix Lauren's hair for school. I looked down at her scalp and saw two tiny bugs. I had to do a double take and then immediately my heart dropped. One of my worst fears had come true. We had been invaded by the LICE!!!!! I immediately stopped, told Mark, called the school and called my mom. Needless to say I panicked, starting checking Claire's hair, drilling Lauren if her head had been itching, had anyone in her class had it, etc. I sent Mark to the wally world and he dropped about $50 in lice treatment and we started our decontamination journey. We all were treated except for Brooke and I spent the whole day picking nits. I felt like a monkey picking out bugs like you see on the National Geographic Channel:).

Later that night, I called my best friend to get Lauren's hair cut. We had put so much treatment on her hair that I couldn't comb through her ends. Lauren's hair was almost to her waist. (Now, can you understand my nightmare? Claire's hair was about the same length.) We had about 4 inches cut and while we were cutting, dog if we didn't find another live one. So I immediately got on the phone with our pediatrician's office because obviously the other stuff wasn't working and they suggested using mayonnaise, olive oil and cetaphil as treatment. So that night, Lauren went to bed with a head full of mayo. That is the best treatment by the way.

While all this was going on, I sprayed her bed, washed all of her sheets, vacuumed the carpets, etc. The only thing I didn't do was bag up her toys because she didn't really play with them.

I felt like we had done everything we could to get rid of the nasty buggers. So the days went by, we checked her head and kept an eye on things. About two weeks later, I was doing a periodic check and noticed she had more nits then she should. I told her we would be treating her hair that night. We had a very busy day that day, so by the time we got home it was about 11pm. We decided to wait to treat her hair. We got them ready for bed and I had gone to the bathroom to get myself ready and was just checking out my hair. Now, let me say, I have dandruff and itchy scalp so I see little white flakes in my hair all the time. I looked and saw something that wasn't normal and tried to pull it off my hair and it didn't come off. I HAD THE LICE!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got so mad!!! I rushed and got the leftover hair treatment and put it in my hair, woke Claire up and checked her head and sure enough, there were live ones on her head. So that night, they went to bed with mayo in their hair and I stayed up until 5 the next morning washing and drying all the bed linens.

This time we took no chances. We bagged everything, and I mean everything in their rooms and Mark brought home the work trailer and we put everything in there. We deep cleaned both of their rooms, bought new area rugs for their rooms, bought new pillows, deep cleaned our bedroom, you get the drift. My house got a full cleaning it hasn't seen since before I was pregnant with Brooke last year!!

This was a perfect opportunity, as well, to put Brooke in her crib and to move Claire into Lauren's room on the top bunk.

I will have to say I hate the fact that we had the lice again and this time all 3 of us girls got it but I now know you have to stay diligent with that stuff and not be lazy at all. I can safely say that at this moment we are now lice free and I can tell you I am an expert at lice decontamination!!!! We have tried so many remedies and I know what works and what doesn't.

What I hated the most about this experience was how it made me feel. I had lice in middle school and felt so ashamed and dirty. Those feelings came right back. I tried not to let that happen to my girls but I will say during this time of cleaning, I almost lost it. Between constantly cleaning, treating, de-nitting, pumping, feeding a baby, driving back and forth to numerous places, pumping, blowdrying, washing clothes, hormone shifts, pumping, I felt like I was about to lose it. I didn't though, thank the Lord. It was during this time that I realized that I don't need to worry about these things, they happen all the time and that I'm not a bad parent or a dirty parent. I can only do so much and that's all I can do.

I'm praying, PRAYING, that we don't get this again, however, being a mom of three girls who I know will have long hair for years to come, its inevitable. At least now, I'll be ready to kill the nasty things!!!!!

Whew....that time flew by fast....

Where in the world did October go? I think that was the fastest month ever!! We were a little busy around here at the Magic McCain's. We went to watch some NC State football, rode some rides at the State Fair, visited the local pumpkin patch, celebrated my birthday, and then went trick or treating for Halloween. Busy!! We had some other stuff going on to but I will save that for another post. I've enjoyed seeing the leaves change colors and the beautiful fall sky. Now we are settling in for what seems to be a fast November....so with that said, here are some pictures of our October:).

P.S. There are no pics of my birthday even though it was mentioned. Didn't really do anything spectacular except spend time with my family....that was enough:)!

Something unexpected....

I had to go to the doctor this morning. I had to have a breast exam. For those that don't know and those that do, just ignore, I exclusively pump to feed Brooke. I pump 4x a day and feel just like a dairy cow. This past Thursday night, I was doing my last pumping and I looked down and saw nothing but pure blood coming into the bottle on my right side. This side has given me issues from day one! I freaked out just a tiny bit. I have had this happen before but never to this extent. It was gross! However, my right breast had been hurting all day on Thursday and when I pumped that last time, it felt so much better and then I look down and see RED.....ugh!

Well, all day Friday and all day Saturday no blood in the milk when I pumped. I had to work this past weekend and I was pumping Saturday night and saw more blood. Pumped again a few hours later and saw more. Not cool... I went and talked with the ER doc and she recommended I go see my doctor, so that is what I did.

He did a breast exam and couldn't find anything. He called the breast center and spoke with a radiologist and they seemed to think everything was fine but I could have an ultrasound if it would give me peace of mind. I didn't schedule one.

My doctor seems to think that I may have a benign papilloma inside a milk duct that is causing the bleeding. He told me to keep a watch on it and if it should continuously happen to give him a call back and they would schedule me an ultrasound.

To be honest, I was a little scared because I know that if you have blood coming out that can be a sign of cancer. My doctor wanted to rule that out and he did!! I'm just going to keep an eye on things. If Brooke was nursing, I wouldn't have even known I was bleeding unless she spit it up. I haven't had anymore bleeding from that breast since 1am Sunday morning but I'm sure that it will happen again. At least now, I have an idea of what is causing it!

Thankful for Nieces and Nephews....

My niece, Cambridge, was a year old when Mark and I started dating. She was like my baby sister. She stayed at our neighbors while my sister worked and when I got home from school, I would go and get her and she would stay with us until my sis could get her. I loved it!! She was my little sidekick. Mark and I used to babysit her all the time. When my nephew, Austin, came along we did the exact same thing. After we got married and moved into our house, we immediately baby proofed because of Austin. And now, almost 10 years later the same babyproofing is still up;).

Because Mark and I were so involved with them, I think it helped us with parenting our own children. I don't feel like we were "typical" first time parents because we already had enough practice with our nieces and nephews. We were pretty laid back about many things. And I'm so thankful for that. I'm so thankful that my sisters trusted me enough to let me watch their kids because by them doing that, I was a better mommy to my own children. I don't get too worked up over stuff and we just have a very laid back parenting style. Now, we make our kids mind and we do have some what a schedule but we for the most part just go with the flow and you know, I'm okay with that.

So thank you to my sister's for letting me have your kids. And for all those aunts and uncles that don't have your own kids yet, get your nieces and nephews. Take care of them for a while because in the end, that practice is going to help you with your own children. Plus, with nieces and nephews, you can give them back to their parents:)!!!!!