One Is Not The Loneliest Number To Her

In a couple months the family is packing up and heading to Hawaii.  (Cue the Brady Bunch creepy idol HI music.) Try not to be to jealous of me.  Okay you can.  I'm totally excited about it.  This is not a trip we would have taken right now and definitely not taken in May, but Andy's good friend, Jamie, is getting married there and he asked Andy to marry him and his fiancee, Monique.  This will be his third time marrying a couple.  It's quite a little side thing he's got going. Anyone else want to get married?  He's up for hire.  We decided right from the beginning that this would be a family vacation, even though my in-laws were pushing for us to go alone so they could come take care of the girls.  However, that would go against my "I don't fly over water without my family" policy.  Don't ask.  It's part of my anxious neurotic side.  It worked out anyway, because they decided they also wanted Georgia to be their flower girl.

You might remember that the girls were in a wedding about a year and a half ago as flower girls and had a blast.  At the time I thought that might be their only opportunity to be flower girls, since my sisters and Andy's brother are already married.  Georgia is Jamie's Goddaugther though, and there are no other girls in his family or on Monique's side either, so we win!  Monique-(who I should mention here is an avid reader of my blog and a fantastic person, and not just because she reads my blog.  I really like her and think Jamie found a great girl.  Hi Monique!)-asked me a couple months ago if Georgia would be in the wedding.  I knew Georgia would be beyond thrilled and since we were already planning on heading to HI, of course I said yes.  She wanted to ask Georgia herself, so we set up a time where she and Jamie could come for dinner so they could talk to Andy about the ceremony and ask Georgia to be in the wedding.

The week before they came, I decided to tell the older two girls that Georgia was going to be in the wedding and they were not.  I knew that it would be better to prepare them, because they all do so much together and we try to keep things even, that I was afraid of how they might react if they were blindsided by this info.  I do not have a problem with just Georgia being in the wedding.  After all, she is Jamie's Goddaughter.  Sonya was supposed to be in my best friend Melissa's wedding when she was younger, but me getting pregnant with Georgia sorta messed that up.  I'm glad I know my girls well though and decided to tell them because Sonya got upset when I told her.  I told Lana a few days after  and she didn't get quite as upset at first.  Then a couple of hours later she was saying to me, "Georgia is NOT going to be happy that she is the only one being a flower girl."

"Oh no?" I asked.

"No she's going to be sad that Sissy and me are not doing it with with her," she told me.

I wasn't so sure.

Unfortunately, about three hours before Jamie and Monique came over, Georgia was hit with one of her migraines. Since I was making dinner and we weren't going out, we still kept our plans with them.  I figured they could still ask her even if it was in a pukey state.

Monique had made a cute little invitation on the computer asking Georgia to be her flower girl.  At one point in the evening Georgia asked to come out of her bed because she wanted to say hi to everyone.  It must suck to know that there is fun going on without you and there is absolutely no physical way you can participate.  I always feel so badly for her.  I picked her up and carried her out to the living room where she shielded her eyes from the living room light.  She gave everyone a meek hello and Monique told her how she felt bad for her.  But she had something that might make her feel better.  She pulled out the card to show her, and she lifted to head up for a minute to try and figure out what it said, but we ended up reading it to her.  I'm not sure she completely got what was going on, but she nodded her head yes, that she would be her flower girl and asked to go back to bed.  I felt bad for Monique, because it wasn't exactly the response I'm sure she envisioned when she was making the sweet card.  I knew once she felt better she'd get it though.

Two days after  her migraine when she was completely better, she found the card sitting on the counter and said,

"Oh!  Let me try thisth again!"

Then she read it out loud with a big smile on her face.

"Are you excited to be a flower girl?" I asked her.

"YESTH!" she exclaimed.

Then she said, "And just I get to be the flower girl!  Not Lana or Sthonya!  Just me!  I'm the ONLY one!"  She repeated this about five times over the next two days.

Sorry, Lana.  I don't think Georgia is upset at all about being the only one to do something for a change.  It'll be a nice opportunity for her to get out of the shadows of her big sisters.  Plus, we get to go to Hawaii, so you know, there's that.  I just hope we don't come across any cursed idols.  I would hate to wake up to a tarantula on my bed.  (dooodaleedoooo...)

Pretty As As A Picture

You may have noticed I changed the picture of the girls on my blog.  It is one of the pictures from the wedding the girls were in back in October.  I love the way all the pictures turned out.  Courtney and  Mark's wedding photographer was amazing.  He had about three other people with him taking pictures. The result was awesome pictures you sometimes had no idea were even being taken.  His name is Mike Larson and if you are getting married or know someone getting married at a vineyard in California anytime soon, contact him immediately: http://www.mikelarson.com  Not only did he do an amazing job, but he was an incredibly nice guy.  He took a fabulous family picture of us as well as tons of great ones with the girls.  But you can judge for yourself:

Getting ready for their big debut.

With the blushing bride.

Sisters!

Loving sisters. (To bad it's not always like this.)

We are all smiling and looking at the camera!  This is not as easy as you would think.

Waiting...

Showtime!

So far so good...

Following in her sisters' footsteps...literally.

Might as well just dump all the petals now!

This is probably one of my favorite pictures of all time.

Followed by this one. This is what I was talking about, not knowing you were being captured.  Well Lana did.

Sonya REALLY wanted that bouquet.  I can't believe how well they captured this moment.  

Rehearsal Dinner

A few months back my girls were asked to be flower girls in a wedding for a couple of our friends, Courtney and Mark. ( Hi guys!! They are avid readers of this blog and I hope they are enjoying their honeymoon right now.)  The girls were thrilled to be in a wedding and they've been counting down the months, then the weeks.  Two weeks ago, they started counting down the days until this past Saturday.  They couldn't wait.  I was also counting down the weeks and the days for something else to happen.  Then it did.  At 4am on Friday morning, the day we were to drive to Santa Barbara for the wedding rehearsal,  I woke up to Georgia standing next to my bed whining,

"Mooommmyy...I don't feel good.  I'm dizzy!"

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!  SHIT, SHIT, SHIIIIIIT!!!

Yes, this is yet ANOTHER post about that poor kid's migraines.  Sorry. I know I mention it every what- oh 7-9 weeks, but when it disrupts your life like this, it makes for good writing.

She was getting her migraines every seven weeks, like clockwork, for  ten months.  Then, the doctor put her on new medication this summer and the time extended to eight weeks in August.  This time she got it in the ninth week.  Of course it happened to be at the worst time possible.  Why not, right?  It's happened before.

Whenever she comes into my room, and says she's dizzy, I think "maybe this will go away if she sleeps some more."  It never does, but none the less I put her next to me in bed encouraging her to sleep.  She did for a couple hours only to wake up and "frow up" in the bucket.  I tried giving her Benadryl, because her doctor said sometimes that can help the nausea and vertigo.  Unfortunately, that dose of medicine immediately left her body.  So I did the only thing I could do, let her sleep and throw up for the next five hours, while I finished getting us ready to leave for the weekend.

The good news was, the wedding was the next day and hopefully she'd be better by then.  The bad news was, we had a two hour car ride, a wedding rehearsal and dinner to go to that day.

By the time we were supposed to leave she was still getting sick.  So I packed up a Tupperware container and a bucket to make sure puke didn't end up in my van or her carseat.  She slept on and off most of the way up, got sick a couple of times, but by the time we got to the hotel it was almost completely done.  She was acting more like herself and hadn't mentioned being dizzy in a while.  I thought we were out of the woods.  We were good to go!  The worst was over!!  I'm a mom, I should know better.

This migraine thing is constantly changing in her.  Much like a baby's sleep pattern.  Just when you get used to them taking two naps, they decide to move to one.  The migraine does the same thing, just when I think I have it figured out it changes.  It used to be it would last half a day, she would come out of it, but then it would come back the next morning.  The last two times, however, it is bad for half the day.  Then she kinda comes out of it, but gets dizzy on and off the rest of the day.  BUT it is only for ONE day. Which is kinda better.  Except for this day.

We went to the rehearsal and she was fine for most of it.  She learned what she was supposed to do, but toward the end she got dizzy again and I had to hold her until it was time to leave.  Good thing I still had a bucket in the car!  We got back to the hotel and she threw up again.  Then she was immediately better and hungry.  Poor kid kept bringing everything back up that she put in her body.  I gave her some apples, and they stayed down.  It was over... we were good?  I wasn't trusting it.  Stupid sneaky migraine.  By the time we were leaving for the dinner, I knew better than to think this was completely over.  I grabbed a little Ziploc baggie, knowing I couldn't walk around with a bucket at the dinner.  Well,  I guess I could, but people might talk. I stuck the little baggie in my purse.  

Georgia was great for a while.  She scarfed down some pizza and other appetizers.  Except by the time we were to sit down at dinner, her vertigo was back.  I spent most of the dinner walking in and out.  We would go outside to sit and get some air, she would feel better, we would go back inside.  This happened at least three times, once we even went to the bathroom when she claimed she was going to "frow up", but she never got sick.   

 The last time it happened was at the end of dinner.  I told Andy we needed to leave in five minutes, as she sat on my lap with her head on my chest and her eyes closed.  He looked at her and agreed.  Then Courtney and Mark came over to talk to me.  Courtney asked about Georgia, and I told her she  had a migraine all day, which is what she had suspected.  She has suffered from them herself since she was a child, so she recognized the signs.

Then as we were talking, Georgia picked her head up and looked at me with THAT look.  (Fair warning-if you're eating put down that sandwich right about now.)

"Mommy, I gonna frow...."

And then, yup.  She did indeed throw up all over me.  It went down my shirt and pooled in my bra.  I know, super gross.  Unlike the rest of the throw up all day, this was one was for real.  Most of the other times, she had nothing in her stomach so after a while it is just harmless oderless bile.  Not this one!  NOPE!!  She had been eating pizza, so I will just let you imagine what that smell was like.  BLECH!  YUCK! GROSS!  Sorry, sorry sorry!!

Earlier in the night I had taken out the Ziploc baggie I had brought with me out of my purse.  I didn't have any pockets, so at one point I just stuck it inside my bra to have it if  I needed it quickly.  So as she was getting sick on me, I discreetly took the baggie out of my bra, opened it and let her finish getting sick into there.  So at least it wasn't ALL on me.

Courtney tried to help clean me up, Andy ran over and disposed of the baggie o puke and I sat there looking around to see who might have caught the incident.  Most people were already up and out of their seats milling about, so luckily we didn't have a big audience.  But the smell was, well, it was throw up.  So we did the only thing we could do.  We left without saying goodbye to anyone.  We would see them the next day at the wedding, after all, and I promise at that point, nobody would have wanted to come near me anyway. 

On the ride back to the hotel Andy and I were talking about how fun it was having our child throw up at a wedding rehearsal dinner.  Then he looks at me and says,

"Where did the baggie come from??"

I shrugged and said, "My bra."

He looked at me questioningly.

"What?" I said. "I'm a mom!  Always gotta be prepared, baby!"


Fortunately, that was the last time Georgia got sick.   We went back to the hotel and took a shower, and then I got acquainted with Marriott's laundry room.  I was so happy they had one.  I did not want THOSE clothes sitting around all weekend.

Happy ending to this part of the story though, the next day, the wedding day, Georgia claimed to be dizzy only twice in the morning.  However, all her food stayed down and she was great all day.  The wedding was....well, I will wait until the next post to tell you about that.  All I can promise you is that it was a  day entirely throw up free!

Weekend Getaway

This past weekend, Andy and I were in a wedding about four hours north of Los Angeles.  Well, I was a bridesmaid and he actually performed the wedding.  He got ordained on line a few months back.  My husband-a minister!  It's kinda funny.  Anyway, we decided a while ago that we weren't going to take the girls with us.  Instead we were going to have a fun weekend away, just the two of us.  I asked my parents  if they would fly out to take care of the girls and to say they were excited to do it, would be an understatement.  


My parents live in Florida, as do my in-laws.  So, we don't have anyone near by who we can rely on to come watch the girls for a weekend if need be.  Sometimes it really sucks.  A few years back my in-laws made a trip with us up north for a different wedding we attended.  They took care of the girls in the hotel, while Andy and I went to the festivities.  That time we couldn't leave the girls alone, because Georgia was only 3 weeks old and nursing.  This time, however, my girls are all fairly self sufficient and easier to care for.  Leaving them for a weekend wouldn't be an impossible task.  Well, except for the missing them part.  Andy and I hadn't been away together since before Sonya was born, so it was something we definitely needed.  It was generous of my parents to fly all the way from Florida, just to watch the girls for one weekend, but I think in some ways they were more excited to come do that, than we were to go away alone.  


The weekend was going to be a busy one for them.  Sonya had a very early baseball game Saturday morning, and baseball pictures in the afternoon.  She was also hoping Nona and Grampy would take them all to the farm one day, to pick strawberries and vegetables.  That kid loves the farm.  Add in shopping at the outlets for clothes, and they had themselves quite a full weekend.  I was a little worried about them driving all over Los Angeles, but then again, we drove all over the world when I was a kid, WITHOUT a GPS, so I knew my father could handle it.  I did make a book full of maps with a schedule and they had the Garmin as a back up.  They did great.  They made it to everything, probably more on time than we do, and had a blast the entire weekend.  Sure they gave the girls every treat they asked for.  They also took them shopping at Toys R Us, after going out to dinner with Great Grandpa and his fiancee(yes, fiancee!  More on that another time).  That is what Grandparents are supposed to do though.  I remember when I was a kid, my Noni would give us Tasty cakes and milk when we got to her house at 10pm at night.  God forbid if my mom would have told her not to.  I seemed to have turned out okay, so I'm sure a little spoiling every now and then won't hurt them.


The most important thing was the girls were happy and safe.  They really didn't even miss us.  I was afraid that when we called to talk to them, at least one of them (Lana) would start crying.  They could have cared less really.  I'm sure some of that comes from the fact that they're older and know that eventually we will return, but the other part of that is they felt cared for and loved by their Grandparents.  They don't get to see them all that often, two maybe three times a year.  Usually when they do, I'm always around, so it's not the same.  My parents said they were excellent all weekend, without one problem or issue.  Of course they were!  They are always better for everyone else.  I suppose that is good though.  Better to have them lose it with me, even if it doesn't seem fair since I am the one who takes care of them ALL THE TIME, but whatever.  


As for Andy, me and our weekend getaway.  We had also had a fabulous time.  The wedding was fun and Andy did a great job marrying our friends.  Perhaps he can make extra money doing this on the side.  Anyone need an officiant for their wedding?  We had a hot spring hot tub on the balcony of our room that we made use of and got to sleep late.  For real sleep late, not try to lay in bed while we hear the girls playing and fighting.  That was good, since I may have had a tad too much wine at the wedding.  And after the wedding.  We enjoyed being alone, or at least without kids, for an entire weekend for the first time in over seven years.  We'll just say what happened at the Paso Robles Inn, stayed at the Paso Robles Inn.  

I took my parents to the airport on Monday morning, and Georgia and Lana were with me.  They said their goodbyes and were sad they were leaving, but seemed okay with it.  Then after school on Monday Lana's teacher said she cried twice during school because she was sad Nona and Grampy were gone.  She didn't cry when I left for the weekend, of course, but was a mess when my parents left.  Nice.  It's okay, I'm glad that they all had such a great time.  It makes me feel less guilty about leaving them for the weekend. 


 Thank you to my awesome parents for coming all the way from Florida, on their dime, to take care of their Grandchildren.  Thank you for all the clothes you bought for them and for making sure they were happy and safe and yes, spoiled.  My kids are so lucky to have two sets of Grandparents who are so willing to help out in any way they can.  Again why it sucks that you are all so far away, otherwise we would do these weekends waaayy more often!