Better Friends??

I got a job taking the newborn pictures at our local hospital. I will work 9-1 on Thursdays and Fridays, and every other Saturday and Sunday. I will only need a babysitter on Thursdays and Fridays. The weekends I work the kids will be able to stay home with their dad.

I am having such a hard time finding a babysitter for 10 hours a week. I'm not asking for free childcare. I'm going to pay whoever does it. Daycare charges $25 per day for a full 8-10 hours a day. I'm going to pay whoever watches my kids $20 a day. So really they will be getting more than if they worked at a daycare. Plus, it will be tax free income. Whoever watches them will have Hudson for the entire time, and Connor for no more than an hour for the next three weeks, and then not at all once school starts. My kids aren't wild. They aren't mean. They are two of the best kids ever. So I really don't understand why nobody wants to watch them.

I always bend over backwards to help out my friends when they need it. Now that I need someone to help out, nobody wants to help. I think I need better friends. I have until next Tuesday, July 20 to find a babysitter. If I don't find one before then, I'm not going to be able to take the job. That would really suck. I'm so excited about this job. I want to work right now. For once, I'm not going to be working because I have to, but because I want to. And I really want to do this job. I hope I can find somebody to watch my boys.

Wonderful

For the first time in his life, Connor has managed to survive a winter without getting sick. Every other winter, he has been in and out of the hospital, stayed sick, and needed his nebulizer. I don't remember him even having a cold this year. The only problems he had this winter was when he kept having seizures in November. He ended up being admitted for three days. The only time we went to the doctor was when he went to the neurologist. He doesn't see her for being sick. He sees her for his autism, seizures, ADHD, and cerebral palsy.

It is such a relief that his health is finally starting to be normal. He spent the first 110 days of his life in the NICU. Over the years he has gone to the ER countless times for being sick, and been admitted to the hospital I don't even know how many times. I pray he continues to be so healthy. I hate when my baby is in the hospital. Actually, I hate when he is just sick. But seeing him so sick he is in the hospital is the worst feeling.

Poor Guy

I recently reconnected with an old friend on facebook. Actually, he was my first boyfriend, first love, first everything really. I haven't seen or talked to him since high school, so it was nice to see how he is doing now. From what I understand, he is recently divorced and it was apparently not a good marriage.  I feel really bad for him. Even though he said the divorce wasn't that bad because they hadn't been happy for awhile, it had to have been really hard getting to the point of deciding divorce was the best option. Actually, I know it was hard because me and Carlos have been having a lot of issues lately, and the subject of splitting up has been coming up a lot lately. Nobody goes into marriage thinking they will split up later, especially when there are kids involved.

Yesterday, he posted a status update about how his ex-wife used the child support money to take a trip to the beach by herself. That is beyond fucked up. That money is for his kids, not for her. It always makes me so mad when a parent, and especially a mother, puts their wants ahead of the kids. Once you get a positive pregnancy test, your life stops being about you, and begins being about your child. I guess in her mind, alimony and child support are synonymous. He's not married to her anymore, it's no longer his responsibility to support her. His obligation is to his kids.

I feel really bad that he had to go thru a divorce, and continues to have drama. He was always a good guy, and really doesn't deserve the BS. From what I have seen on his page, he seems to be a really great dad. Someday, his kids are going to realize who the better parent is and will only want him.

Amazing!

Last night at t-ball practice, I had a lady ask me if Hudson is still taking a bottle. I told her he had never had a bottle. She was shocked! Is it really that unusual for a baby to never have a drop of formula? Breast milk is, after all, the way babies are supposed to be fed. It is the BEST thing a mother can do for her child. Really, are we as a society so sexualized that the thought of a woman using her breasts for what they were meant to be used for is shocking? As long as I live, I will never understand why people get so up in arms over breastfeeding!

On a related note, I posted the other day on facebook about birth control and breast feeding. I need to find another means of birth control since I no longer meet any of the criteria for nursing to be effective. Carlos and I have agreed now is definitely not the time to add another child to the mix. My concern is the pill will decrease my supply. Hudson still nurses pretty frequently. I got several comments about how nursing isn't even an effective form of birth control. Really? 98% isn't effective? With perfect use, the pill is 98% effective, but in reality, with typical use, it is only 87% effective. So what if somebody got pregnant while nursing? Does that really negate the reality that nursing IS an effective form of birth control? I know people who got pregnant on the pill, depo, and even after a tubal. If  I asked around, I know I could also find people who got pregnant while on an IUD or after a vasectomy. My point is, if you don't consider a 98% effectiveness rate as "good", you probably shouldn't be having sex!

It's been a long time

it has been a long time since i've posted anything. I can't believe how fast time got away from me! So much has happened since my last post, the most important being the explosion at the upper big branch coal mine. This accident affected my entire community. we live a short distance away, even for big city folk. we are about 20 minutes from the mines, which in our rural area is nothing.


i am so heartbroken over what happened. i knew several of the men who were killed. One man was one of my husband's cousins. Another man lived in our little town. A third man was the father of one of the kids my oldest son used to play with. Three men were close relatives of friends of mine. For five days, we all held onto hope that the final four would be found alive. When Governor Manchin and Kevin Strickland gave that final press conference, I cried like a little baby.

I have always been thankful my husband's job is not risky. He is an autobody tech. the only time I ever have to worry about him is in the winter time and he has to go across the mountian when the roads are bad. I have never been more thankful and relieved that he chose not to follow his family in the mines as I was this week.


There have been several tributes to the miners posted on youtube. One of them is the song Covered in Coal by The Blackwater Outlaws. I have always loved that song, since the very first time I heard it. It now holds more meaning to me. The one that tugs at my heart the most is coal miners note. You can see the video here 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bNc4SSZJlw