'nuff said

holden spit up on the couch.
carter looks up from the ipad (angry birds), shakes his head and says, "rude."

turbinate trouble

as i've been in my feeling-like-poo-haze lately, i have not updated much on here (nor have i cleaned my house much or paid many bills that may or may not have been due a couple days ago ::shuffles::).  after catching up on my bills today that thankfully none of which had any late fees, i thought i would update about my sinuses.  i saw the ENT doctor last friday and FINALLY found out what's wrong with me! (well, what's wrong with my sinuses anyways).  it turns out my turbinates are too large.  if that's not an obvious explanation for you, here is my understanding of it:  there are apparently some boney things that are part of your nose/sinus area called turbinates.  mine are too big.  most likely they have been enlarged by years of allergies.  because they are too large, they are narrowing the passageways of my nose, making it difficult to breath through it, and are also blocking the drains for my sinuses, not allowing them to drain properly.

this is the list of symptoms that can be cause by enlarged turbinates:

Nasal congestion that alternates from one side of the nose to the other Difficulty breathing through the nose Feeling of pain and pressure that alternates from one side of the face to the other Headaches Poor sleeping caused by nasal drainage problems and/or dry throat Snoring and possibly obstructive sleep apnea (removing the nasal obstruction does not usually end snoring or obstructive sleep apnea, but may reduce the severity of your symptoms) Tiredness and fatigue Occasional to frequent sinus infections

yea, i have them all except the snoring/sleep apnea.  so i will be having surgery on may 25th to correct this and HOPEFULLY i will get to getting better sleep, having more energy and generally feeling like a human :-)

note:  the doc is keeping me on my allergy medicine cocktail for now to try and keep any infections away before surgery, but hopes to wean me off of some afterwards.  i think i will find myself at an allergist to get to the bottom of my mystery allergies that are so apparent, yet are so elusive as to what triggers them.  we shall see!

baby babble

holden is officially a talker!  and the best part?  his first (and only so far) word--"mama." :-)

i can't tell you how happy this makes me.  carter's first word was "ball," followed by the typical "dada."  i know babies usually always say dada first.  but not my little fella.  i knew he was a keeper :-)

now his "whining" is takes the form of "maaaaaammmmmaaaaaaaa...moooom..maaaaaamma," which is bittersweet because i LOATHE whining, but he is after all saying my name, so.....

sinuses: this is WAR!!

i am sure at some point in my life, i woke up in the morning feeling refreshed, rested and ready to take on the day.  i do not, however, remember any such day.  i am not a morning person and doubt i ever will be.  but looking back on the many recent years of my life, i wake up most days feeling like total crap.  i usually sleep until carter (or holden, although it's almost always carter) wakes up.  as he walks into my room to announce "it's 7," as he does every day, i typically just want to cry.

as i pry open my eyes, and often before i am even able to do that, i feel the headache.  UGH, again?!?  my face is often so puffy i am able to see my cheeks out of my peripheral vision and my face throbs.  clearly, there is a problem here.  unfortunately, it has been going on for so long that it has just become part of my life--suck it up and gimp through the day, always just managing instead of performing at my best.  i get "sick" often--mostly cold and sinus issues, but they drag me down even farther.  my mother-in-law always seemed to have similar issues and finally found out she had polyps in her sinuses and a crooked nose to blame and had surgery (today) to correct it.  motivated by this, and her encouragement, i realized this has to stop.

then came the next issue, which is scheduling any type of appointment for myself.  this is near impossible since ryan rarely has his schedule for more than a week at a time and it changes from day-to-day.  my most recent dentist appointment had to be rescheduled 3 times, and at that point it starts to become a bit embarrassing.  finally, i was able to schedule (and keep!!) an appointment for a sinus CT today.  my family doctor called with a report that it indeed showed some thickening of the walls from chronic infection.  i have an appointment with an ENT doctor next friday to find out what needs to be done about it.  i am pretty much scared to death of that surgery, but something has GOT to give here.  REALLY hoping they have an answer for me!

new recipes success!

in my new cooking inspiration, i have decided to try at least one new recipe each week.  so far, i've made 5 new recipes and 4 were keepers and 1 was not so much.  most of the new recipes i am trying are coming from old cooking magazines that my mom gave me YEARS ago that have been sitting under my microwave stand.  since we are getting rid of said microwave stand, it has become necessary to get rid of the stuff on/under/in it.  i decided to go through them, tear out the recipes i'd like to try, and then just throw the rest of it away--takes up way less space that way.

the first one i tried was called "nutty peach bread"--yum, right?  well, i didn't really think so.  it was ok and we nibbled on it for a few days, but the bulk of it went in the trash, along with the recipe.  in defense of the recipe, i did not use any nuts (just not my fav thing) and used peaches from a can.  i just thought it was kinda blah, and that, my friends, is not worth the calories.

since then, i have successfully made ham and cheese quiche (thanks to a friend who served it at a baby shower), cranberry-orange muffins, brownies and cheesy sausage penne and they will all be added to my stash!  i made the cheesy sausage penne and immediately put it in the freezer.  last night i heated it up, my brother came over for dinner, and we all thought it was super yummy!  i am sharing the recipe for anyone who wants to give it a whirl.

cheesy sausage penne

1 pound bulk italian sausage
1 garlic clove, minced
1 jar (26 oz) spaghetti sauce
1 pkg (1 pound) penne or medium tube pasta
1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1 cup (8 oz) sour cream
4 green onions, sliced
2 cups (8 oz) shredded cheddar cheese

in a large skillet, cooke the sausage and garlic over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain.  stir in spaghetti sauce; bring to a boil.  reduce heat; cover and simmer for 20 minutes.  meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions; drain.  in a small mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, sour cream and onions.

in a greased shallow 3-qt baking dish, layer half of the pasta and sausage mixture.  dollop with half of the cream cheese mixture; sprinkle with half of the cheddar cheese.  repeat layers.  bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until bubbly.

NOTE: i used 2-8x8 dishes instead, since that size works better for my fam and it worked great, making two dinners.  also, since mine started from frozen, it took about twice that long to thoroughly heat.

ENJOY :-)

holden's surgery

we spent yesterday morning at a branch of cincinnati children's hospital having holden's hypospadias repair surgery.  for those that aren't familiar, the short version is that hypospadias is when the pee-hole is not in the correct place of the penis.  carter actually had the same condition and has had the repair surgery twice (only because the first one came undone).  there are many varying degrees of hypospadias.  in the worst cases, the hole can be behind the testicles, which requires multiple surgeries to correct.  luckily both of my boys had very mild cases, where the hole was only misplaced by a fraction of an inch.  to correct this, it only requires an outpatient surgery (unless there is another factor, such as prematurity, which requires an overnight stay for observation after anesthesia, like carter had for his first surgery).

anyways, background aside, the surgery went great.  we opted to have the surgery at an outlying campus of cincinnati children's instead of the main campus simply because it's a little closer for us.  surgery was scheduled for 7:30 am, with us arriving at 6:30 am.  everything went so well, that we were on our way home at 10:30 am!  here is a picture of my little dude before surgery.

he woke up well from anesthesia, which is always a concern.  even with carter, he always woke up really crabby and was hard to control.  holden woke up great, which isn't so much of a surprise since he is a happy waker-upper anyways.  so far he has been doing great, just a little extra sleepy.  our main problem has been with the fact that he has diarrhea from being on antibiotics for weeks now trying to get rid of his stubborn ear infections.  this is a problem for obvious reasons.  we have already had to change the dressing around his penis multiple times and we weren't supposed to mess with it at all.  however, once it gets "dirty" it has to be done.  he has been great about taking all the medicines he has and hopefully they will help him heal quickly!

he has a stent in to keep the hole open while it heals, which means frequent diaper changes because he is always wet.  he will have that taken out next tuesday and then can resume normal activity.  in the meantime, he can't do any straddle toys, which means NO JUMPEROO :-/  and we can't even carry him on our hips, which presents another challenge trying to tote my 21+ pound dude around.  all in all, everything has gone great so far and we are hopeful his recovery will continue to go well and he will be back to normal in a week or so.

saturday morning bait and switch

my rant for the day is about aerobics class.  we belong to a gym like 30 seconds away, that also has childcare, which has been great for me to go workout.  the classes are all free and are drop-in style, which i what i do the most.  i went today for a scheduled hip hop aerobics class that i have attended before and loved.  when i got there, it was a different teacher and she is doing zumba.  now don't get me wrong, i like zumba and have attended that class as well, but when you go expecting one thing and get another, it's not cool.  i also realize that things come up at the last minute, but it seemed as though this was a planned sub and a note at the gym announcing the change for the week would have been helpful.  but oh well, now we're doing zumba.

so she turns up the music and off we go.  and i mean she REALLY turns up the music.  like, hurts your ears loud.  luckily, there was an instructor from another class in there and she went up and just turned it down-LOL.  after a couple songs, the girl thought it would be "fun" to turn around and face the class instead of the mirror.  now, i was a dance teacher for many years and this is something that is totally okay to do...with one requirement--if you are facing the class, you (as the teacher) must do everything opposite, so as to mirror the people doing it.  i'll bet you can guess where this is going...people going every which way.  some going left, while others go right, and many just flailing around because they don't know which way to go.  instead of realizing and correcting, she giggled and continued this throughout the whole song.  soooooooo irritating!

on saturday mornings, the classes are always super full (for obvious reasons) and the mirror always fogs up.  she thought this, too, was hilarious and continued to wipe it down after EVERY song to try and see herself.  it fogged up again within seconds EVERY time, yet she didn't seem to get the memo.

little things like this went on the whole class and while she seemed rather adept at the "smile and nod," she was lacking in some basic skills.  the kicker for me was when we went to stretch and she was doing stretches with her weight on the wrong leg, which could actually cause injury.  uurrrrrgggghhh!!!  is it too much to ask for aerobics instructors to be at least mildly qualified?  i really hope she has another "day" job...