One Hail of a day

Well well. We had one hail of a day yesterday. Pun totally intended. It was around lunch and Ava and I were headed to Target. I got pretty much all the way there and realized that I didn't have the thing I wanted to return. Duh. So I turned around and headed home. On my way home I stopped at the bank. In that time the skies opened up...in minutes it was pouring rain so hard I couldn't see and the hail...oh my the hail. I was about a mile for home and decided to make a run for it. (The bank that I was at was all over the news showing all of the damage to the employee's cars...yikes) Anyway. I fly home and get in the garage and that is right when the ping pong ball sized hail started. It was nuts. I knew that it wasn't a good idea to make the trip from the detached garage to the house so I got in the back seat with Ava to ride it out together. Then, I heard the tornado sirens. Hell. We are sitting ducks in a garage during a tornado. So I find a lawn chair cushion and put it over Ava in her carrier and make a run for it. I get the ever lovin crap beat out of me...hi..can you say bruises? I ran through ankle deep hail to get inside. I took this picture about 5 minutes before I made the run for it.



We get inside and hunker down for the rest of the afternoon in the downstairs bathroom. Me, Ava, Barkley (dog) and Sasha (cat). At about 1:50 pm, Barkley starts whining and pacing. Come to find out that 2 tornados touched down less than a mile from our house at that very moment. I guess moving forward Barkley will be my tornado siren. Scarey. All in all we weathered the storm. We didn't lose any windows...which is very lucky. All of our neighbors on both sides and across the street lost many windows. We lucked out because before I left for Target I opened all of our windows because it was 75 degrees and sunny...and didn't look like rain. Our screens are torn out and I had to clean a bunch of huge ass hail up...but no windows. And..windows happen to be the one thing our HOA doesn't cover. Phew. Other damage, my flower gardens, our deck has some quarter size dents in the wood (fixable) and our roof looks pretty beat up...but that is covered by the HOA. At the end of the day, no one got hurt.

Here are some pictures of the 2nd storm that blew through at 7 pm last night. Seriously? Ha. By the way...the hail had all melted from the earlier storm...so this is all new hail. Sweet.





I had nightmare last night about the storm. Before leaving for Target I wanted to go for our daily walk. We go about an hour around the neighborhood. Imagine if I was 15, 20, 30, or 60 minutes from home in that storm. My nightmare consisted of me trying to find a house to let us in from the storm and no one would. I then put my body over Ava in her stroller...only to be knocked out by baseball sized hail. In my dream....all I can see is black...and all I can hear is Ava crying in pain. It was horrrrrrible. I can still tear up thinking about it. Sigh.

Moving to Mexico

Dear President Obama:

I'm planning to move my family and extended family to Mexico and I would like to ask you to assist me.

We're planning to simply walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and we'll need your help to make a few arrangements.

We plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws.

I'm sure they handle those things the same way you do here. So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Calderon, that I'm on my way over?

Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:

1. Free medical care for my entire family.

2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.

3. Please print all Mexican government forms in English.

4. I want my kids to be taught Spanish by English-speaking (bi-lingual) teachers.

5. Tell their schools they need to include classes on American culture and history.

6. I want my kids to see the American flag on one of the flag poles at their school.

7. Please plan to feed my kids at school for both breakfast and lunch.

8. I will need a local Mexican driver's license so I can get easy access to government services.

9. I do plan to get a car and drive in Mexico, but, I don't plan to purchase car insurance, and I probably won't make any special effort to learn local traffic laws.

10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from their president to leave me alone, please be sure that every patrol car has at least one English-speaking officer.

11. I plan to fly the U.S. Flag from my house top, put U S. Flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.

12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, or have any labor or tax laws enforced on any business I may start.

13. Please have the president tell all the Mexican people to be extremely nice and never say critical things about me or my family, or about the strain we might place on their economy.

14. I want to receive free food stamps.

15. Naturally, I'll expect free rent subsidies.

16. I'll need Income tax credits so although I don't pay Mexican Taxes, I'll receive money from the government.

17. Please arrange it so that the Mexican Gov't pays $4,500 to help me buy a new car.

18. Oh yes, I almost forgot, please enroll me free into the Mexican Social Security program so that I'll get a monthly income in retirement.

I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all his people who walk over to the U.S. from Mexico. I am sure that President Calderon won't mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely.

Thank you so much for your kind help. You're the man!!!

Epic

Today Ava had a melt down at the grocery store of epic proportions. Epic. As I was checking out she started to warn me that something was starting to piss her off. Her fuse burned hot and fast and by the time I was paying she was screaming at the top of her lungs, pumping her little fists, sweating and red faced as a tomato. A crowd was gathering. I took her out of her carrier to hold her and bounce her to get her to stop. The sweet boy with down syndrome who bagged my groceries says he will help me to my car. I am carrying a screaming wiggling 7 week old who now has large alligator tears streaming down her face. People are staring. She is still screaming...and getting so loud she is losing her voice. I am trying to remain calm. We get to my car and I put her back in her carrier to load the groceries in the car. She is still screaming. The sweet boy who helped me to my car is now getting upset too and rocking back and forth like Rain Man saying over and over "Something is hurting her. Make it stop. Something is hurting her. Make it stop." Over and over and over. Ava is still screaming. And the sweet boy is now Rain Man. Good lord. I get the groceries in the car and quick like a bunny make a bottle for Ava. I am sitting in the back seat of my car feeding her. She stops crying....but is whimpering and giving me what-for with her moans for making her wait 5 minutes to eat. To add insult to injury, now Rain Man is convinced that I have hurt my child and he is walking around my car giving me dirty looks. I mean diiiirrrrty looks. I roll the window down and tell him that she has stopped crying and thanked him for his help. His eyes narrow and he glares at me and says, "Good. Baby stopped hurting." Alrighty then. The Mom of the Year Award goes to.....

Smiley Ava!

Now that I have figured out how to post videos....I will become borderline annoying posting them. They are more for me to remember...just so you know. (wink) Here's one smiley girl.

Hilarious

I am a quirky person. I like things the way I like them. I have odd likes and dislikes. I know that about myself. My friends and family know that about me. My husband...not so quirky. He's a straightforward normal dude. Except when it comes to this one thing...where the toilet paper holder goes. I have NO idea why...but he wants the toilet paper holder to be in the middle of the bathroom...totally in the way. OK. I admit that it's MY quirkyness that has made this an issue but in our house it causes some eye rolling on my part. He wants this thing so far from the toilet that if one were to run OUT of toilet paper mid-activity, one would have to get up OFF the toilet to reach the new toilet paper roll. While I was pregnant, I told him that over and over, and without fail, he would move it again. It's a game now really. I move it. He moves it back. I have to laugh. Finally while I was pregnant, I had to get kinda pissed....OK really pissed one night. I brought him into the bathroom and showed him how much of a pain it was to get my fat preggers ass off the toilet to get more paper. Whew. During the rest of my pregnancy the paper stayed where it should be....by the freaking toilet. Ava is 7 weeks old today. And....dun dun dun....this morning...I went in the bathroom to find it BACK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FREAKING BATHROOM. Grrrrr. Oh Todd. Here are the pictures. The first picture is where the toilet paper SHOULD be. The 2nd picture is where Todd moves it. Grrrrr. Hahaha.

What a sweet pea!

Here's a picture from our visit to the photo studio! She's 6 weeks old in this picture! What a sweet pea!

Bath time for Ava

If you can stand my singing...it's a cute video of Ava's bath. She loves her bath...but in the video she is looking at me like..."really? really mom?" Ha.

Recovery

My recovery from the c-section has been fairly easy. After surgery they sewed this line in my belly by around the incision site that gave me a steady dose of pain meds right at the point of incision 24 hours a day. I had to carry a bag of medicine with me everywhere. I was happy when they took that dumb thing out because I kept forgetting I had it and then yanking on the line sewn in my belly...that hurt more than not having the meds...I think. We left the hospital on Friday at 1 pm after I insisted on being sent home. They took my staples out of my belly and sent us on our way. I wanted to sleep in my own bed. We did so much better at home. I was tired of doctor's poking me and Ava at all hours of the day and night. I wanted peace. Home. Sweet. Home.

She's here!

And she's almost 5 weeks old. I have been a bad blogger again. I have been a wee bit busy. Ha. Well world, our beautiful daughter is here...Ava Jean. She was born on Tuesday, March 30th at 8:05 am. She was 6 lbs, 9 oz and 19 inches long. She's just a little peanut with a full head of brown hair. She has so much hair that people stop and talk to us about her hair everywhere we go. She is soooo beautiful and just the sweetest thing ever.

We had issues during the c-section and I lost a lot of blood. Everything turned out ok...but it was scary there for a little while. I noticed that it was taking a lot longer than I had been told it would take. I could hear a change in the tone of the doctor's voices. I was trying to listen to what they were saying and just then...the anesthesiologist came down by my face and started asking me questions about the baby's nursery. I said to him, "I don't mind answering your questions, but I am trying to listen to what they are saying over there." He said, that it was his job to ask me questions. Really? It's your job to ask me questions about the baby's nursery? Well. That was about the time he gave me a nice solid hit of morphine that pretty much knocked me out. Nice. One of the surgeons peered her head over the screen blocking my view and her face was covered with my blood and her eyes were as big as saucers. She literally looked scared. Wowsa. Made my heart sink. I saw a splatter of blood on the ceiling of the Operating Room and asked, "Who's blood is that on the ceiling?" And my doctor joked, "well it wouldn't be a very sanitary O.R. if it was someone's blood other than your blood." Ha. Great. Everyone is a comedian. Todd said the area looked like a freaking murder scene. I heard my doctor tell the students observing the c-section that this was not a normal amount of blood loss. Sweet. After they got Ava out, they showed her to me and then they rushed her to the NICU because she wasn't "pinking" up. She was very blue. I told Todd to follow and stay with the baby. He wanted to stay with me....but I wanted him with her. She needed him....and I was fine. They took me to recovery. I was there until way after 11 am. I had been told that I would be done and breast feeding the baby within the hour after surgery. Surgery was at 7:30 am. So...at 11 am I started saying "Where is my baby? Please take me to my baby! WHERE is my baby?" They told me I wasn't ready to leave recovery. I guess my big mouth got me somewhere this time because by 11:30 I was in my room and Todd was bringing Ava to me. Everyone else had held her....but me. It was my turn. When Todd layed her in my arms it was love at first sight. She was so alert and we just locked eyes. Man oh man...I love that little girl.