'Sup.

Howdy ya'll. I'm a terrible blogger. Sorry 'bout that.

I'ts not as if there hasn't been plenty to blog about. But, well, the truth is that I discovered google reader, and didn't need to go to blogger to keep up with everyone else's blogs, and so I got distracted with other people's lives, and uninterested in keeping track of my own. Excuses, excuses.

So. What's new down on the farm? Let's see... August was disgustingly hot, and I was having some repercussions from two pregnancies in a row, and so I pretty much sat around wearing as little clothing as possible and waiting for it all to be over already. September was pretty much the same way. Sometime in the middle of a few rainy days, the stupid raccoons killed all my chickens again, and I cussed alot. Sorry. This time I'm really not trying chickens again until I get some razor wire and electric fencing. Maybe I'll put frikin' lazer beams on their frikin' heads. Is that too much to ask?
October was pretty awesome, it always is. Halloween is so much fun! We had a big party here with a bonfire and a "tractor" ride for the kiddos. Oh, and we learned how to grill meat. I mean for real. Like, the most tender and delicious grilled meat ever. Maybe I'll write a post about it sometime. Or maybe I'll just tell ya'll to go to amazingribs.com. You know you wanna.
November is the busiest month of the year for me. Punkin's birthday, Maezie's birthday, and then Thanksgiving. Three big events, 3 weekends in a row. This year was even bigger, because it was the first year I was hosting Thanksgiving at our house. There is nothing like trying to cook dinner for 13 people in a house that looks like Toys'r'us just threw up on it. I think I may have to institute a 1 toy per child, per birthday rule or something. Especially with Christmas being just a month later!! It's definitely time to do a toy purge around here.
But, back to Thanksgiving dinner. I want to tell all of you a story about gracefulness, and skill, and me falling over the baby gate 2 days before Thanksgiving and seriously jacking up my knee. But I just gave you the punchline, so we'll leave it at that. I am eternally thankful to Grammy and Nana for coming over and doing whatever I told them to while I sat at the table in the kitchen with a knee the size of a canteloup. I commented to Davey after the dinner that I couldn't believe how smoothly everything went, and that's when he so kindly pointed out that I hadn't really done most of the work. (>sigh< There's always next year.) Still, the food was awesome, the company was awesome, and it was a pretty darn near perfect holiday. Even if I did have to get around with a cane.
Fortunately my knee got better VERY quickly, and we were able to pretty much stay on schedule getting the Christmas decorations up and whatnot, and then started the December baking and cleaning and present-buying and present-wrapping blur that is Christmas. This year wasn't a big year for presents, but I'm just so thankful that we were able to buy any presents at all, because I honestly thought for a little while that it was not going to happen. But God is way, way too good to us, and this Christmas was a great one. Not really because of the presents (though don't get me wrong, I love me some presents) but because the girls are getting old enough to really start enjoying everything about it. And because I got to do nice things for people I like an awful lot. And, I'm not gonna lie, because of the cookies. I really love cookies.
On the 29th of December, Maezie-bell had her surgery. I  had the mother of all panic attacks beforehand, but seriously, the surgery itself only took 15 minutes, and she came thru it like it was no big thing. Afterwards I freaked out ( I do that alot) because her smile was different, but then the swelling went down, and it's not so different, just bigger, and toothier, which is not a bad thing at all. And we're already seeing improvements in her eating and noise-making! Hooray!
So. Now it's 2012. I ushered in the new year sitting on the couch and trying to figure out why any of the "musicians" on New Year's Rockin' Eve are getting paid for what they do, and why people seem to think they're so awesome. Maybe it's just because I'm getting old, but Beiber? singing Let it Be? With Carlos Santana? Come ON. I've heard kids at highschool talent shows do better covers than that. And don't even get me started on Pitbull or Lady Gaga. Yep. I'm old. But I'm totally ok with it.
So. To sum up:
The last 5 months have been crazy and typical.
I've started my midlife crisis.
and I'm a kluttz.
Yep. That's pretty much it.

he was a good dog. he was a great dog.

Today is a hard, sad day. 11 or so years ago I found Jake while I was on one of my evening walks. I had prayed and prayed for a dog. I wanted a buddy to go walking with me. I did not pray for a skinny, wasted, mongrel dog, but that's what I found on the road that night. He was so thin and hungry he could barely walk. He followed me home (with no prompting from me.. no, really. I, uh.. it wasn't my fault!), and I told my father to feed him or put him out of his misery. 20 minutes later, mom and I were at the store and we got the phone call to bring home dog food. And you know what? That scrawny mongrel turned out to be a handsome dog. A good dog. A Great dog. The whole neighborhood knew him. He went for daily runs, 3 miles or more, with our neighbor. He went "visiting" to all the neighbors' houses (where they gave him treats). He was the friend and champion of all our outside kitties. He followed my dad anywhere he went.. he was ALWAYS ready for a walk in the woods. He loved bonfires. And oatmeal cookies. And pepperoni. And roadkill. He was a faithful friend and companion.
Last week he started having trouble walking, and after 4 days of being in visible pain, it was time to let him go. We knew this day would come. He was at least 12 years old. That doesn't make it any easier.


Jake with his best friend, Little Boy

 He was the best dog I've ever had, and I'm going to miss him so very much. Goodbye, Jakey boy. I love you.

A Very Big Day

Today in the Lewis household is a Big Day. Today, Davey starts his first day of work at a new job. A new job that is 40 miles closer to home, and pays a good deal more. AND he gets the fancy-pants title of Director. Movin' on up!
This Big Change for Davey means some changes for me as well. For starters, he will still be here at 6 am, when I'm usually just having my first cup of coffee and enjoying some kid-free internet time. He'll be here, and he'll probably be on the computer. Curses. BUT, he'll also be here at 7:30 or so when the girls wake up and have breakfast, which means we can all eat together as a family. Which means that now I have to do more for breakfast than break up a banana and dump a handful of cheerios within reach of little grabby hands. Curses. He also doesn't get free lunch any more, so I'll need to fix him up a brown bag every morning before he leaves. He'll also be home at a regular and consistent time, which means I'll know when to expect him for dinner and we can all sit down and eat together... which means that I need to get dinner made at a regular and consistent time. Curses!
Seriously, though - I'm very excited for this change. We'll have more time together as a family, and anything that forces me to be more organized and consistent in my daily schedule is a very Good Thing. Because on my own, I suck at time management and organization. I really do. So even while I mutter curses under my breath and wonder when I'm going to get time to sit and read all my blogs and waste time on Pinterest, I know that this is a good thing for all of us, and I'll just have to remind myself continually: paid holidays! sick days! consistent schedule! less gas and  miles on the car! more time with the family!

Yep. A Big Day. A Good Day. But no matter what Davey says, I'm still not calling him 'Director'. So there.

why every girl should own a pair of overalls (and muck boots!)

Today my father-in-law came out with his tractor to mow our VERY overgrown pasture. It's very overgrown because a "creek" runs thru the middle of it and for 10 months out of the year turns the majority of it into a bog. The 2 months out of the year it's not a total bog, it's still at least a little bit of one. So, say it with me kids: Tractor + bog = STUCK. When the FIL came up to the house for lunch, he said "I think it might be time to call a tow truck", after trying unsuccessfully to get the tractor out himself. But wait, isn't your truck 4wd? Why, yes it is. Now, I may not be much of a farmgirl, but I'm sure willing to try. So I suggested we try to pull the tractor out with the truck before we call a tow service. I mean, how hard can it be?


I put the girls down for their naps while the FIL went down to get the truck in position and the chains on the tractor. And then I decided that before I headed down to the pasture, I needed to change. A cotton tank dress is not the outfit for pulling tractors out of creekbeds. On went my overalls and my pink muckboots, and down I went. 10 minutes later, the truck was out of the bog, and I. FELT. AWESOME.



My trusty christmas pitchfork. Don't I just look so farmer-y? Yeah I do.



Now, you may be wondering what overalls and muckboots have to do with anything. They don't really. Except that dressing like a farm girl makes me feel like a farm girl, and makes me feel capable of doing farmgirly things, like pulling a tractor out of a bog. Seriously. If I ever feel like something is just too hard for me to do, all I need is to put on my overalls and muck boots, and suddenly I'm capable. I can take on the world. Or at least an overgrown flowerbed. With my overalls on, household chores tremble. They know I'm coming for them and there will be no mercy. With my muck boots on, no weeds will deter me. There are no bugs to fear because they will not crawl across my toes. And if they try, I can pulverise them. With my muck boots. Forget diamonds. Overalls (and muck boots!) are a girl's best friend.  



something witty and clever

I can't ever seem to come up with a post title. I hate post titles. I think they were invented by communists. Or those rare individuals who can always think of something witty and clever to say. So yeah, communists.



Figured out something this week about feeding Maezie-bell: Come at her from above, and drop it in her little mouth, birdie style! (Though I refuse to chew her food for her first, or regurgitate it. Sorry, kid.) That way, her head is back, and gravity does the work for her. Gravity! Who knew?!



all baby food kinda looks regurgitated. I'd be nervous, too.



The walker appears to be the best thing to sit her in and achieve the proper angle.



big sissy is feeding her something. I should be concerned.



We still have a therapist coming to evaluate her on the 1st, but she seems to have made some progress in the last 3 weeks. At least as far as eating is concerned. Still no babbling or consonant sounds, or any shaping of the lips when making noise. We'll know more in a week. In the meantime, a full baby is a happy baby!



Speaking of birdies - I've spent the last week or so playing nursemaid to a couple of our chicks, who have twisted necks. Some people call it "stargazing" but that sounds like they're just sweet, wistful dreamers, as opposed to poor, miserable little things. I've done some research and so far what I've come up with is that it's either disease, nutritional, or due to fluctuating humidity in the incubator. I'm leaning toward one of the latter 2, because all the other chicks are still healthy, and so far these 2 have not gotten worse, they just have floppy, twisted necks. I've been giving them liquid vitamins in their water. I brought them in the house to keep them separate from the others for about a week, and then 2 days into a killer migraine I remembered that DUH! I'm allergic to birds! This is why we started brooding them in the coop in the first place. Much as I want to give the poor things a good shot at survival, I need to be able to live thru the experience as well. And if I didn't kick that headache, somebody was gonna die. They're still able to eat and drink, and don't appear to be getting any worse, so, we'll see. This morning when I went out to the coop they looked better than they had in days. I hope that's going to continue. I haven't been able to find out much definitive info on a cure for their condition.

On a happier, holy-crap-could-summer-actually-be-winding-down?!? note:

I harvested our very first pumpkins!! Mini pumpkins! I checked the forcast, and the temp is supposed to be 98 today, but I swear to you, I can feel a little bit of fall crispness on the breeze... I might even be able to smell cinnamon. That last part is probably all in my head. Leave me alone. I'm happy.









"tongue tied" is not just a figure of speech...

Every mommy wants to be the best mommy they can. At least I certainly hope they do. I know that my kids are about the most precious thing in the world to me, and I can't stand it when there's something even slightly wrong. So now I'm kicking myself over something that I didn't even know could be a problem.

Most everybody has heard of  being "tongue-tied", even if they're not sure exactly what that means. I was vaguely aware that some babies are born with tied tongues or cleft palates, but I never thought much more of it.

When my youngest was born, she was a robust, healthy thing, and she seemed to me to be feeding pretty well, but she pretty rapidly lost weight (not to the point of her being in danger, but she was a scrawny little thing there for a while). I did notice that she drooled while breastfeeding, and was hungry every hour, and she wanted to feed for an hour. This got worse over the course of 3-4 months, and I thought it was because my milk supply was drying up, which I attributed to trouble with my thyroid. I started pumping and bottle feeding, and she started putting on weight and being more satisfied with her meals. She's now 8 months old and completely bottle-fed. She was also an extremely "puke-y" baby (which she has outgrown some), and drools constantly. She leaves a trail wherever she goes, I'm not even kidding. I started transitioning her over to solid foods at 5 1/2 months, and it was a total mess. She just pushed the food out everywhere, nothing went in. So I waited a week or 2, and then tried again. A little better, but still messy. But hey, practice makes perfect, right? So I kept at it. She's been eating solids for a month now, and she still can't really get all the food down. I noticed that she thrusts most of it out with her tongue, and can only get it down if I shove the food to the back of her mouth. So that got me thinking. I had noticed that her upper lip was really attached to her gums, to the point that I was wondering if she had any upper gums -they're that far up there under her lip. And the tiny band of skin that connects the lip to the gums comes all the way down and even wraps around her upper gums, right in the middle of what will someday be her 2 front teeth. I started wondering if maybe that was causing her trouble with eating. So - I googled it, and aha! my poor sweet girl has an attached upper frenulum. It's similar to what happens to the tongue - the band of connective tissue is too short or too thick, and movement is restricted. I started reading about all the problems other mamas were having, and there it was - the drooling, the trouble breastfeeding, trouble eating... I wanted to cry for not having noticed this sooner. I had no idea that this was something that could happen.

So - off to the dr we went (she really needed a checkup anyway), and not only is the lip tied, but so is her tongue. She is otherwise a healthy, happy, beautiful baby girl, and her weight is still good - thanks to my moment of genius when I decided to start making her "baby smoothies" in her bottle rather than trying to cram it down her throat on a spoon - and all of her other development is excellent. The doctor reffered us to an early intervention program offered by the state so that they can evaluate her and see what the best course of action will be. We met with a coordinator on Friday who did Maezie's initial evaluation. Basically she just asked a lot of questions: is she able to eat at all? not without a bottle. does she make any kind of consonant sounds when she babbles, bababa, nanana, etc? nothing. does she combine vowel sounds, oowee, eeeyo, etc? not at all. does she drool? copiously. does she put things in her mouth a lot? EVERYTHING. does she suck or chew on her fingers? yep.

Next step is to have a therapist come out and determine exactly how delayed in her speech and eating she is. Then she starts therapy, or goes on to an ear, nose and throat doctor to see about surgery. Which scares the stuff outta me.

I know that this isn't the worst thing in the world that could happen to my girl, but it's still upsetting. And nothing to mess around with. As the coordinator explained - the biggest danger to her development is that because she is otherwise a smart, bright, healthy little girl, when she tries to do the things that her brain is telling her she should be able to do (talking, eating), it's very frustrating, and after a while, she'll just stop trying altogether, which can have a negative impact on her brain development, and really slow her down for the rest of her life. And she is waaay to smart, and bright and beautiful to let that happen! I just really want my baby girl to be able to function normally, and take part in everyday life with the family. Perhaps the most frustrating part of all is that this should never have been a problem. It should have been caught and fixed when she was tiny - and then it could have just been snipped and she would never have known the difference. Now she's too big to be snipped, and they won't do anything without more evaluation.

Yesterday I took the girls out for ice cream with their nana, and it was Maezie's first day sitting up in a high chair instead of in her infant carrier (she is getting WAY too big for it!!). She was so excited to be up and a part of what was going on. I tried giving her just little tastes of my ice cream, just so she could share in the experience, and she couldn't swallow any of it. It just drooled out all over her shirt. I kept trying, because she was loving that little bit of sweetness on her tongue, but it was really breaking my heart. I want my baby girl to be able to sit and eat ice cream with her mama and her nana and her big sis. She should be able to do these things. I want her to be able to say "dada!" and "mama!" and "sissy!" I hope that therapy works. I hope that surgery is completely unnecessary - or if it is, I hope it is over and done quickly.

I can't take the heat...

...it's makin' me just a little crazy.


Been thinking a lot today about summertimes past - I'm sure because it's so freakin' hot here (the heat index today is 110!!) - and about how on earth I ever managed to survive. These days, when the temp gets above 85, which it does frequently, I just want to curl up and .. I don't know.. sleep? pass out? skip through a wardrobe to a magical land where it's always winter (but never Christmas)? It doesn't help matters that our air conditioner is about as effective as the proverbial fart in a windstorm. I get done what I can in the morning, and when the back sweat starts to roll (around lunchtime or so - lovely, isn't it?) I plop down on the couch and pray for mercy til at least dinnertime. And cooking? HA. Make yourself a salad already.
It's kind of surprising that I don't handle the heat better. I grew up in Florida, just north of Tampa.. you know, in that hot part of the state too far from the ocean to enjoy the cool breezes. 90 was a balmy spring day. 75 was a cold snap. If the temperature did manage to drop below 60, we were busting out hats and scarves. I vividly remember peeling my thighs off the vinyl seats of the old powder blue station wagon, and not being able to touch the seatbelt for the first 5 or 10 minutes without risking 3rd degree burns. (To the genius that decided that cars should have vinyl seats - bite me. You suck.) 
But I also remember going to Disney World and Busch Gardens in the MIDDLE of summer, and playing football or basketball outside with friends, or riding bikes to my best friend's house.. baseball games, picnics, trips to the park, etc. All done smack in the hottest time of the year. I didn't die. I don't recall particularly feeling that I wanted to. That feeling seems to be something that I have acquired with age. And possibly a reduced heat tolerance. I SWEAR it was not this hot when I first moved here. Beautiful, wonderful, temperate Tennessee has betrayed me. It's gotten ridiculously hot, and there's no ocean to cool off in.


I want to be here right now!!

 We bought the girls (ok, we bought Davey) a little blue plastic swimming pool the other day. It helps. It's no Gulf of Mexico, but it gets the job done. Thursday we're getting a loaner window AC unit to help our poor, geriatric central AC, and things around here should improve. I eat a lot of popsicles. And ice cream. And freeze-pops. And salads. I expect to be 10 pounds lighter by the end of the month. Ah, silver lining!!