Doctor's Note

Well, today marks 4 days of Jayla's pink eye. It also marks 4 days of us being together 24/7...which means that it has been at least 4 days since I've done anything resembling productive work.

Today is the day that I would usually spend all day at school. School is 100 miles from my house so, once a week is enough driving for me, thank you. But, I'm not there today. I am sitting here typing while Jayla piles stuffed animals in my lap and then takes them all to the couch, arranges them nicely, then brings them back to me, rinse, repeat...I'm loving every minute of it, actually. Jayla is in such good spirits and has been uncharacteristically non-bratty and content to spend the last 4 days in the house with me.

Meanwhile, I'm corresponding with the professor that I work for on campus and he is suggesting remedies that could speed up the healing process for Jayla. Maybe he doesn't believe me? Maybe I should send him this as a doctor's note:

Payback

Just a word of caution: If for some reason you happen to be visiting with friends on a Saturday night and the conversation makes a blatant turn towards judging families that include stay-at home moms, do not say anything about how your child rarely gets sick compared to some of the stay-at-home children that you know. And please don't let your friends say anything about how your child has built up her immune system. I speak from experience. If you do not yield to my advice, you could wake up no more than 12 hours later to a child with pink eye and surely, pink eye is the poster child for sicknesses that children pick up from being around other children.

On Sleep

When I was still working full-time, Jayla had a very predictable night-time sleeping schedule. We'd put her to bed between 8:45p and 9:00p and not hear from her until sometime between 7:00am and 7:10am. You could set your clock by her.

Well, last semester, I relaxed her bedtime ALOT. By November, we were doing good if Jayla was sleep by 9:30p and alot of times, she was seeing 9:45p or 10:00p. But, her wake up time adjusted accordingly so, we just started our mornings a little later. It wasn't a big deal.

However, ever since the Christmas break, we've had problems getting Jayla to sleep at night as well as getting her to sleep past 7:00a. So, I'm trying to get better about getting her in the bed by 9:00p again. I really need the predictability that we used to have. I'm not doing so good, though. It's 9:36p right now and she is still up! I only put her down for the first time at 9:22p. So, mama didn't even get us started out on the right track tonight.

Meanwhile, mama is tired. I'm not newborn-baby-in-the-house tired or anything but getting a little more sleep wouldn't hurt me. But, it's almost like I don't know how to go to bed earlier. I've done better in the month of January, though, getting to bed most nights before midnight - even on the weekends. I guess I have issues with going to bed "early" because after I put Jayla to bed at night, I feel so free. I enjoy the time that I have with my husband and no Jayla. Plus, I'm really productive after 10:00p. But, I talk to so many of my friends that are heading to bed, if not sleep, by 10:00p. I don't understand how to do that! I have a feeling that getting Jayla back on her 8:45p-9:00p schedule would help though...

Sean and Robin's 15 minutes...

Admittedly, I did not watch either of my cousins when their respective shows were actually on the air. It's about 10:30 Monday night and I've just watched both airings through the power of DVR.

Luckily, my sister set the DVR to tape AFV last night because we missed the first 15 minutes of watching it last night. Sure enough, Sean's video was in the first 15 minutes! The clip was actually kinda funny. Sean and his brother-in-law, Jonathan, had apparently locked a cake in the oven. The entire video clip consisted of Sean shining a flashlight on the latch of the oven while Jonathan tried to pry it open. Then Jonathan, thinking that he could overpower the latch, pulled the handle off the oven, lost his balance, and fell into a wall. While, I initially laughed, now I'm just really concerned for whatever woman that oven belongs to! Maybe I'll send him an email to find out whose kitchen they were in...

I am just unbelievably proud of Robin and her appearance on Oprah. It was amazing. She looked amazing and she represented our family so well. There were pictures of her and her eight brothers and sisters (includes Sean as her youngest brother). I still can't believe that she was actually standing there, talking to Oprah, on a live show! And the look on her face said that she couldn't believe it either.

Here are Robin's before and after pictures.

I remember seeing Robin at our grandmother's funeral in April 2005. She was still large then but, it was evident that she was starting to loose some weight. I just remember thinking that it wasn't a big deal though. Then, last summer at the family reunion, almost no one recognized her! I only knew who she was because people had already told me that I wouldn't recognize her. So, I was kinda on the lookout for someone that I didn't recognize. :) The transformation has been amazing. I am so, so proud of her...

Celebrities in the Family

There's been rumors all week that my first cousins, Sean and Robin, are going to be on the small screen. Sean is supposed to be on America's Funniest Videos tonight and Robin will be talking about her 225 lbs. weight loss on Oprah tomorrow.

I'm pretty excited about seeing both of them!

A Letter to Grandma

I'm really bad at correspondence. I hate talking on the phone...no matter who it is. I haven't written a letter since 1996 or so. And I don't live anywhere near any of my family (besides my sister who still lives in my guest room). So, my grandma was surprised to hear from me when I called her last week. As usual, I got a lecture about how nice it would be to hear my voice on a more regular basis. I thanked her for the Christmas money that we received from her over a month ago and we talked about how her Christmas and New Year celebrations were.

Earlier this week, I got bit by the letter bug out of the blue and one of the three people on that list was my grandma. I think it may have been the abundance of leftover stamps from Christmas cards. Hassle-free letter sending! So, I sent her this a few days ago:

Grandma and Granddaddy,

Thank you again for our Christmas money! I wanted to show you what we did with it. We decided to buy a cabinet to store Jayla’s toys that had managed to overtake our family room:




When she woke up and saw it yesterday morning, I asked her if she liked it. She replied, “It’s better, mama!” and immediately started playing. Now all of her stuff is in one corner of the family room and we have reclaimed some of our space back.




Love,
Us

You should all be very proud of me!

Grannies and Technology

For Christmas I made DVD's of Jayla's Christmas performances for her grandparents. My own grandmother (Jayla's great-grandmother) has not seen her in over a year so, I thought it would be a good gesture to also let her see the performances. Except, uhhh...my grandmother does not have a DVD player. For a brief moment, I even doubted whether she owned a VCR to play VHS tapes. It turned out that she did. So, my task became finding a place that sold VHS tapes. And since they didn't have them at Wal-mart (my first, and most logical shopping designation), I was convinced that they are no longer manufactured and that I would have to buy my grandmother a DVD player. But, who would hook it up? And does her TV have the right AV connections? Ack! I finally came to my senses long enough to look for VHS tapes in other stores and while Best Buy also doesn't sell them, Office Depot and Target do. So, all was well with the world. I was able to copy the DVD to VHS and send it to her. She received it on Christmas Eve and enjoyed every second of it. But, let me tell you how much easier that whole effort would have been if she just had access to slightly more updated technology...

In related news, tonight, my husband called his parents. They were at his grandmother's house, setting up a computer that they are handing down to her. She is very excited about starting computer classes at the "Y". She's taking a six-week class that will teach her the "basics". "Of what?", I asked. No one seems to be able to answer that question. But, what really cracked me up is that when my father-in-law turned the computer on after hooking everything up, Granny commented in disbelief, "You can turn on the computer on without the Internet?!?!?". I'm just saying - the instructor at the "Y" has his/her work cut out for him/her...

The Next Generation

My mom loves to tell the stories of when I was a preschooler and would ride my red tricycle down to my neighbor's house. She seems to recall that I sometimes did it without permission and she would find my tricycle parked on the sidewalk in front of the McCarver's house. She would often walk into the house to find me eating, even if I had just finished dinner at home.

That last sentence is the most convincing part of these stories because I still love me some food.

Anyway, it was no surprise what her big gift to Jayla this Christmas was:


Now, I just need to whip up a sign for her that says "Will Ride For Food!"