TN Home School Diploma Bill Becomes Law

Way to go Bredesen!!

Tenn. Home School Diploma Bill Becomes Law

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A proposal to give home school diplomas the same weight as those given by public schools has been signed into law by Gov. Phil Bredesen.

The law requires all state and local governmental entities to recognize diplomas issued by home schools and church-related schools as having the same rights and privileges of diplomas issued by public school systems.

The law exempts home-schooled students from having to obtain an accredited diploma from local school directors or take the General Educational Development test.

April showers

may bring May flowers, but May thunderstorms bring nothing but cancelled soccer games and trips to the Renaissance Festival. Boo!

Waitress, we'll have four rounds of antibiotics please

Hello, my name is Dr. X, how can I help you today?

Well, let's see, today we're feeling a bit like something the truck ran over, so ... let's take a look at the menu.

mmmhmmm

Allright, I believe I'll have one of the azithromax, since penicillin doesn't sit well and some flonase on the side.
Doug'll be having the classic penicillin
Natalya will try the Doxycycline, although we'd like to trade the side of possible gray teeth for nothing on the side
and for Zachary? How about the Omnicef, the one that smells like fruit punch- that way when he spits half of it back on me it will at least smell good, okay?

Great! Four rounds of antibiotics coming up.

And.... hopefully we'll all be well in a week! ACk!

job hunt

Please send get-a-part-time-job vibes to me. That is all. Thank you.

Today I am thankful for

my beautiful, precocious, brilliant, stubborn daughter. For the laughter and joy she brings to my life. For the moments that I am amazed at her wit and comprehension of things.

Doug's job. For being home every night and two days a week. For having GOOD insurance (thank you large corporation).

my health and the health of little bean. I am feeling thumps and flutters pretty regularly now, several times a day at least, and can't wait until Monday when I can see him/her again and hear the heartbeat.

the roof over my head and

air conditioning. Thank you inventor of air conditioning. If it didn't exist, I'd be living in Yellowknife Canada or Tongue Scotland.

I won!

I should actually credit Doug for this.
I have been wanting to get another Freehand Mei Tai. I love them so much I want a back-up, but they recently were bought by another person/company so they've been out of circulation for a while since the old owner stopped making them a bit ago and the new owner is currently making them to sell.

Anyway, I checked in on their site Saturday and they're in the process of making them now to sell but they aren't currently selling them. Meanwhile, to celebrate, they were having a contest. Tell why your baby carrier helped you, or your favorite babywearing moments, etc.

I shared Doug's story and won!

The cool thing is that the contest was only through May and I entered it on May 31st at like 10:30pm. (although I think they are extending it for a few more months, I don't know if a FH will be the prize)

If anyone else wants to enter for this month, the website is: http://www.togetherbe.com/contestFre...iGiveAway.aspx

Here's my (doug's) story as it was posted:
Brandy, Clarksville
"My daughter is nearly three years old and we still wear her in her Freehand MT that we've had since she was a newborn. It has been a lifesaver for us for everything from housecleaning to outings where strollers aren't feasible. In the beginning though, my husband wore her most, nearly 75% of the day, as I worked full-time and he was a sahm Dad. One day I received a phone call from him at work and he informed me that he would no longer be wearing her without a shirt. My daughter, who had refused her bottle twice (nothing new) was fussing (nothing new) so he put her on and was washing dishes. Suddenly he got a shock as she latched on and sucked her heart out. My poor child was probably wondering why Mom's boobs were suddenly flat and hairy while my husband was thankful that I had recently showed him the proper de-latch technique. He appreciated me breastfeeding a lot more after that. "

Updates and so sorry I've been away!

Hello all you readers (all one? two? of you) :D
I can't believe I've been absent from here so long. It's been, well, I don't know. I feel like I've been busy, but then I can't think what I've been doing. Taking care of a nearly-three year old? Gestating a 15-week-old? That's about it.

Natalya is hitting her stride lately. What a silly girl! Yesterday we went to the Motocross/Motorcycle store to take a gander/drool at some motorcycles and try to get a gameplan together for Doug's motorcycle. Natalya LOVES motorcycles. She was nothing but grins when we walked in.

We were leaving and she said, but Mommy, I thought Daddy was going to get a motorcycle (very upset). I said not today honey, we were just looking today.
She didn't totally get that "just looking" concept and kept asking about it. As we got nearer home, she said it again and Doug gave her this long spiel(as he does sometimes, messing with her) about how we were just looking today and that we can't just jump into things and make snap decisions, because we don't want him to kill himself on a motorcycle. We have to be smart and make little steps so we can make good decisions, blah blah blah.
After his several minute long speech, N thought about it for a second and said, But I like to take BIG steps!

OMG. Doug and I laughed so hard, we had tears streaming down our faces. What a girl, this one.

As for me, I'm good. I had a midiwfe appt on Monday and everything looks/sounds good. We got to hear the heartbeat. N's favorite part. She always runs around telling people, you know? the baby in mommy's tummy is going to be a brother or a sister.
I have an appt on June 16th as well as an ultrasound. That will be the day we find out the sex (if baby cooperates) and hopefully that everything is progressing nicely. The mw agreed that I will have some extra u/s's after about 26ish weeks just to keep an eye on fluid levels and other things, since we lost Margaret at nearly 31 weeks.

Doug starts his new job on Monday. Yahoo! We had a crazy, long, ridiculous weekend that I may talk about later, but the end story is that after 1200 miles on the road over the course of 3 days, we got his truck dropped off in Atlanta and he's completed his job with King Transportation/Werner. No more Big Trucks!! YAY!!

Mommy, it's a "beee-beee"

Natalya says "baby" so cute. She pronounces it "bee-bee". Mommy, you've got a beebee in your tummy. I have a beebee in my tummy.
About said beebee. . . s/he is causing much morning sickness! I swear it gets worse each time.
I went today and had an ultrasound, more for my own sense of security after our loss than any other reason. Everything looked fine and I am measuring exactly what I said, 6 weeks 5 days, due November 6th.

Here's the little Baby Blob


Amanda went with me to help wrangle Natalya (which wasn't really that big of a deal since we were only there a few minutes, but just to be on the safe side). She only lives about two minutes from the imaging center, so she was happy to go. It is always neat to see the baby in utero, even when it's nothing more than a pulsating blob. :) And we did get to see the hearbeat pulsing. Very, very cool.

In other news, Natalya is getting sick. I don't know what she picked up or where she picked it up- could have been one of many places, but she's got a stuffy/runny nose and she feels warm. I also noticed her pulling an ear today and when I asked her if it hurt she said it did. I will withhold judgement on that until tomorrow and if it seems to be still bothering her, I'll take her to the dr.

Otherwise, we're doing good. :) Waiting and hoping for Doug to have some other job opportunities coming his way to get him home more often. We're all really tired of him being gone all the time. It's been a year of this, and we're ready for something different.

Our new car :)

We went today and traded in our Element for an Odyssey! Yahoo!
AND.... we got a 2005! They didn't have anything newer than an '04, of which they had 4, before Saturday, and I kept checking, knowing we were gong today. I was using my The Secret powers, and visualizing an '05. And when I got online last night to look- an '05~!

I love it soooo much! It's got some really cool features, like window shades that are hidden in the doors you can pull up and attach, and a 6-disc changer. I do love the extra seat in the front, and the fact that I can take it out and scoot N closer to me (I always put her behind the passenger side).
I especially love the dual climate control. On the way home my side was set at 76 and Doug's side was set at 65. LOL!


Here's some pics from the dealer site. Natalya loves it too- after we FINALLY left the dealership, we went to get some food b/c we were all starving. We were eating and she said I'm all done, I want to go get in my new car. Aww!



Then, we just had our first crazy new car, learning curve, incident. LOL.

Natalya likes to play with the key fob, honk the horn, etc. I always try to steal it back and lock the doors, but am not always successful. And. It is raining.

N was playing with the fob and we hear horns honking. I think crap. What if she opened the sliding doors. To my shock and amazement, when I looked out of the garage, the doors were closed, but the windows were OPEN! And it was pouring!

I had no idea how she did it and the only way I knew to roll them up was to turn the car on. so I ran back to get my keys (upstairs) and back out to the car (in the rain, in my socks!) and started the car, rolling all windows up.

Ok, so, apparently if you press the unlock button, then do it again, but hold it down, it rolls the windows down. (there's no way to roll them back up on the fob though).

I would've never known this if she hadn't done it, then I figured out how she did it (manual anyone?) and b) I didn't even know the back windows rolled down! Cool, and LOL!!

:D

Luckily, nothing got TOO wet. Except for my socks. ;)

Detox day 3

Ok, so last night I had the tinglies, but not nearly as much as before. Weird! It was more gooey. blech. I feel really good today. Not as tired and sluggish as I normally am, and I haven't had all that much sleep in the last couple of days, but also not as much caffeine. COOL!

They don't look as bad b/c I didn't take them right away, so they faded a bunch, so imagine them a lot darker in the white areas.



Just in case you think you might want to try this- I ordered my pads through a friend- they are Avon brand. I have another friend who tried Avon's and Kinoki's and she said the Avon were better, Kinoki were gel-like and really, really disgusting in the morning. YUK! Also, if you buy another brand, make sure they don't have an aluminum backing. Aluminum is not good for your body and would certainly not help if you are trying to detoxify.

To order from Avon, contact your local Avon representative, or mine, if you want her name/email info, let me know. :)

Detox for last night

Night 2: I had more tingling last night but no throbbing. I have had a migraine on and off for the last three days but it's gone today and I actually am in a pretty good mood, comparatively speaking. The pads don't seem as disgusting today as yesterday, despite the fact I had some Chianti at dinner last night. So, pulling less toxins? My thoughts, hey, these things may actually do something. NEAT!

Here's the results from last night:

Detox your body...through your feet?

There's a new product out, well, fairly new, called detox foot pads. The idea is using old Chinese remedies and thought of the feet being the release of the toxins and things such as that, (think accupressure and the points in your feet), these pads are supposed to draw out toxins from your body while you sleep. You wear them three nights in a row and it's supposed to help cleanse you.

I wasn't sure if it was a total crock, or if it really did something, but I figured I'd give them a go. Got some for Doug too. (Happy Valentine's Day honey! You're toxic. Here, go cleanse. :D )

So I tried them out. Doug too. Ewww! GROSS!!! The pads start out white, and there's a little pocket of green tea and vinegar and who knows what else in there. I didn't expect much. To be honest, I figured it wouldn't do anything and it would be an interesting experiment. I put them on and laid down to go to sleep. As soon as I put them on, they felt warm, basically I figured the warmth was because I had something stuck to the bottom of my feet, which was strange, to say the least.

Then, while not expecting to feel anything, a few minutes later my feet started tingling and throbbing a little. It sort of felt like when you put a bandaid on a cut and you put it on too tight- that sort of throbbing. It was really weird. It sort of kept me up and I wanted to take them off because it was an odd, and slightly uncomfortable sensation. Luckily, I was really tired and fell asleep anyway.

Doug say he didn't notice anything, a little tingling, but nothing very noticeable...but he also is sick- has a bit of a head cold, and was sooo stopped up he couldn't breathe, but he didn't snore at all. Also weird (and very nice!).

So we woke up yesterday morning and pulled them off. GROSS!! Pics below if you want to see the results of the toxin dump.

Also, I wasn't hot and don't normally have sweaty feet so the result wasn't from sweaty foot syndrome.

Here's the really disgusting results... (smallest size possible so as not to be toooooo gross!)