Grandma

This Grandma's Good For

Belgian waffles and smoothies
Best backyard/playground
Coolest toys
Biggest hugs
Longest Stories
Most books read
Silly Made Up Songs
Spoiled Grandkids
Drop by Visits with Great Surprises
Thanks for the stroller, she loves it!

Unsupervised Jason + Washable Paints + Twisted Sense of Humor =

30

Happy Birthday, Whore. Your Rockstar qualities make me laugh. Thanks for all the butt-slappin' good times.
Love You Mucho,
The Warden

Finer Qualities

Amy and I were just discussing some of her finer qualities. Ok, actually she was telling me what her finer qualities are. Don't tell her, but I already know about most of them. But here's the thing, everything in this world must have an equal opposite. If it were not so the world would be thrown into total chaos. Because I am privy to this higher knowledge I feel that whenever Amy attempts to inflate her own ego that I have the job--scratch that--responsibility to debase her and bring her back down to my level. You know, to keep a balance. This may sound a bit harsh, but make no mistake, I would never intend to put her down, only to keep her steady. With that said it would be important to note that I don't want to insult her without a compliment to even things out. So here are a few of my favorite backhanded compliments about Amy.

1. Amy is one of the most vicariously hard workers that I know. She is one of those people who is constantly on the go, getting things done...and doing it by telling others what to do. She can accomplish as much in a day as I can in a week, seriously. It has always been said that the key to good management is delegation. Good job Amy.

2. One thing that I have always admired about Amy is her cleanliness. She always likes to keep the house clean and the dishes washed. She works very had to make sure that the house stays this way. Just because the kids have managed to thrash the entire house and use every dish we own by the time I get home doesn't mean that she hasn't been keeping up with the house work. I'm sure that the house looks great while I'm gone.

3. Amy has always been great with kids. She knows exactly how to handle any situation with the kids. Anytime they want a book read to them and she doesn't have a lot of time to spare she just says, "Go ask your dad to read it to you." Or when they start getting a bit rambunctious or defiant she just tells them, "Why don't you go across the driveway and see grandma." She must get it from all those years of teaching daycare.

In all seriousness, though, Amy is a great person. She is a fantastic wife, and a wonderful mother. My life would be bleak without her...and I would have a lot more free time to think about how bleak it is.

The Downside of Digital

A few of you know that awhile back I became addicted to digital scrapbooking. I didn't think I would ever convert but the first time I tried it, I loved it! It was so much cleaner, faster, and cheaper. You never found yourself needing one more chipboard letter or having your adhesive not really adhere or having to decide to which papers to cut and then regretting it later. The only part I had to get use to was the lack of dimension and I was even tackling that a bit. Right before we left for vacation in June, I had learned how to add dropshadows and other dimensional tricks. I was even more hooked. After returning home from vacation, I stopped having the time to scrapbook since I started entering inventory info for the halloween store I work for. Two nights ago I went looking for my digital scrapbook folder that use to be on my desktop. I hadn't noticed before, but it was gone. I started poking around and realized that all my papers, elements, and alphabets were missing. Gone. I panicked. Called Jason at work and hoped there was some explaination. Nope, none. He didn't know where they were either. I checked the trash...Nothing there either. Then it hit me. A month or so ago, after Spencer had been playing pbskids.org I noticed the desktop seemed different. But thats all I could figure out. Didn't realize at the time what was missing. The only thing I can figure out is that he somehow had to have moved my folder into the trash. And apparently, my husband doesn't check the trash bin on the computer before he empties it. And thus I believe was the awful fate of all my dig. materials. Thrown out in the trash. The biggest downside to digital scrapbooking for someone stupid enough to not make backup disks. I look at these and can almost cry...

The Color White

With the resulting 6.6 we got from our bili test, our worries have subsided, and all of Carson's coloring went with it. I feel a little dumb as I look at him thinking, "Oh, now I see what she meant by yellow!" It was hard for me to really see his coloring for what it was since I'm with him all the time but now I can really tell a difference. We're so very, very grateful that our little boy is healthy. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those who are struggling with various medical difficulties. Even the little stuff is tiring and worrisome and I can't imagine how huge the big stuff must seem.


In one of my rare 'good mom' moments, I made the kids some playdough. To occupy Sophie I gave her a couple bowls of flour to play in. It was well worth the mess. Only problem is now whenever she see's anything resembling flour, like the pancake batter I used this morning, she screams at me and starts getting out bowls and spoons!

My baby's not sick, he's just yellow?

That would be the question we are still trying to answer. After one week and 5 bilirubin checks, we still aren't sure whether Carson's jaundice is due to breastmilk or something else (there really is a type of harmless jaundice caused by breastmilk). We have another blood test Monday and if his level goes down (we've been at 11, 12, then 13, back to 12 and last was an 11), then we're all good. We can chalk all this up to breastmilk jaundice. If the levels haven't dropped then it will be 3 more days of formula feedings, another bili check and once again: low levels- done, same or higher, off to Spokane. It's been worrisome and tiring and I'm ready to have a for-sure answer. We thought 24 hours of formula feeding would give us answers, then we uped it to 48 hours. The drop from 12.8 to 11.5 wasn't significant enough to diagnois the cause so now we're trying 4 days of formula (Seattle Dr.'s recommendation) and then maybe the 7 days the Spokane Dr. recommended. The blood work we had done at the hospital last week ruled out most major/common causes of jaundice/high bilirubin which caused Dr. Andert to start consulting with a few specialists to know what to look for next. The next cause on the list is a potential enzyme problem that would be treatable but leaves people looking yellow for the rest of their lives. Maybe he would end up looking something like this...

Let's just hope for a less than 11 today!