Is there a recession in Webkinz world too?

I woke up recently at 6 am to find my daughter crying in front of the computer.  She's 7, so there are two things in this scenario that bothered me.  Why on earth was she up at 6 am, and why was she crying at the computer?

I found out, between sobs of course, that she had woke up and decided to go and logon to Webkinz world.  She has 24 Webkinz that grace her shelves and sleep with her at night, and although she doesn't logon to the web site very often, she definitely loves her little animals. 

As we hadn't been on there, she hadn't been feeding her little animals regularly.  She also hadn't been amassing much KinzCash, because she was nearly broke and her babies all had ice bags on their heads from 'going hungry'.  I spent the next half hour selling off possessions from her rooms in order to bring these online creatures back to life, and although I was happy to make her feel better, I was not impressed with the entire web site!

Webkinz used to give you the option of sending your pets to the spa in order to revitalize them.  If you had a bunch running low, you could send them all.  I think the fee was $100 KinzCash for her 20 odd animals.  We tried that option, and it made me realize that recession had hit Webkinz world, because they jacked the spa price to $6000!  

Are they joking?  I know that the TV's we sold and the couches were not used (for real anyway) by her animals, but it made me sad to sit and watch her rooms empty one by one.  Her little face was crushed.  Prior to that morning, if you didn't actually choose that individual animal to play with, they remained in some sort of limbo.  Not hungry, not thirsty, just there if you wanted them.  Now they change it? What's the point?

It seems ridiculous to spend anytime at all thinking about Webkinz unless I'm playing with my kids, but really, is it necessary to add such urgency to a land of imaginary animals?  I'd rather my kid have the option of visiting occasionally than feel pressured to go every single day.  I don't even want her sitting on the computer every day.  

At any rate, that's my rant for today.  I'm still seriously considering sending them a letter telling them they are all a bunch of idiots.  Too bad Obama isn't the president of Webkinz World.  It looks like they need a bailout plan too. 

Distracted

It's so difficult to actually get any work done when you lack focus the way I do!!  I don't know what is wrong with me, it's so difficult to sit down and actually concentrate enough to write an article about children's festivals or outdoor event businesses.  If I could bang my head against the computer I would, but it would break in half! lol

I had a weird dream last night.  I dreamt my husband was a crack head. lol  He kept locking himself up in a room with other people and doing drugs.  I took the kids and went to Grandma's house I think, but when I woke up I was thinking that life isn't really all that bad.  Clearly, in my dreams, it was worse!  

The house we live in is way too small for us.  If we asked the people in the basement to move out, we'd get that space back, but it's so cut off from the rest of the house that I wouldn't put a kid down there for sleeping.   So we are stuck up on the top floor, with bedrooms and all, and it's getting more and more difficult to ignore that there is no where to go for quiet in this house.  It's been really bothering me lately.  This isn't the best time to sell or move.  To get what we need, it is still ridiculously expensive and I'd need to get a job.  Unfortunately, I can't get a job right now giving the baby and all, so I will just have to organize better and make some room.   It's so funny though, this house looks huge from the street, but we live in about 1000 square feet total. The rest is basement suite and office.  I'm ready to go sleep in the yard. 

Baby is a squiggly little worm, and it's fun to feel him moving around.  The lady across the street is pregnant too, and it is hilarious to watch them buy all of this baby stuff. When they ask me if I'm prepping a baby's room, I just laugh.  Really, where will that room be? My closet?  I will set up the bassinet and get the clothes out in June, but that's as far as  I will go until after he is born.  I am reminded of parents who put their kids in drawers to sleep.  

My grandma had 13 kids.  Although they really did have a massive old farm house, I am wondering exactly where she put them all? I heard rumors of babies sleeping behind the stove to keep warm.  I have adopted a policy of 'don't ask' with my mom.  It makes me cringe to think of what those helpless babies went through.  She grew up sort of detached & distant from people, so I guess you can chalk one up for Freud and his attachment theories.  

I'm going to purge my closets.  I had no intention of doing that this morning, but I really can't focus on writing today.

Eating my feelings

I don't think there is that much more to tell about Vegas.   It was sunny, beautiful.  I wish I could live in a climate with palm trees and sun all the time.  I just think my mood would be positive all the time.  

I am an overeater lately.  Ever since I caught wind of my triple screen results and my pending amnio, I've been eating to make myself feel better.  I feel pretty gross.  I have my bike set up on a trainer in the office, and I like to use it for 20 to 30 minutes at a time, but I haven't had the motivation lately.  I thought that the cloud would lift when I found out baby was ok, but now I have just shifted my worry to J's job.  

I am really, really finished with his employment.  I don't know how someone could be such an Ahole and pull someone's well deserved raise.  No explanation, nothing.  He expects the max. amount of work for the least amount of pay, and the worst thing is that I never see my husband.  I'm always on my own with the kids, and now with another one on the way? I am just done. 

If a window opens when a door closes, I'd like to crawl through that window.  After almost 9 years of this crap, with stress and no money to show for it, I want to be finished.  I just hope he can find another job quickly and it's not KD and ichi ban for us for the next two years. 

Vegas for preggos

Las Vegas is a strange and wonderful place, but it's so completely different from what I remembered.  I guess if you can't walk down the strip with a drink in your hand, you see a different side of Vegas!

We rented a car one day and drove out to the Hoover dam.  I have to admit, I was very nervous.  I hung on for dear life anytime Jason went near the edge.  It's so high it makes me sick.  The drive was beautiful though, and the desert looks nothing like I have ever seen.  The trees are odd looking, and I kept looking for cactus.  I guess the desert from the cartoons isn't the desert in reality!

We stayed at Treasure Island, which really was beautiful.  The beds were unbelievably comfortable.  2 duvets and egyptian cotton.  I never wanted to get out of bed.   It was a great deal too.  $89 per night for a premium room. 

More later, off to pick up the kids.

Negative amnio !!!

After a solid month of being told that I have a 1 in 60 chance of having a child with downs, I am very relieved to say that my baby is considered free from downs and other chromosome issues.  Can you say relieved???? Seriously, I almost collapsed when I got the call. 

I got up at 6:30 am on the morning of the amnio, and my friend picked me up in J's car because MIL needed the van to get the kids to school.  We made it to the hospital by 7:50 am, and I checked myself in thinking I had a long wait.  Not to be, they took me straight in and made me change into a gown.  

The only thing that kept me sane at this point was the fact that we would get to see the ultrasound, and I since I have been studying ultrasounds to the point of becoming a technician, I was ready to look for the markers that indicate downs.  

We got into the room and I sat down on the bed so I could sign the forms and give consent.  At this point, the entire idea of the amnio was sinking in, and when they exposed my tummy and started swabbing it down with antiseptic, I was ready to run away.  They very briefly put the baby on the monitor to look for the placenta, and then the doctor was ready.  I started to cry, because it was so scary!!  The nurse asked me to hold her thumbs up by my head, and I am sure they do that so you don't make a grab for your tummy.  

He didn't give me much time to prepare, just 1,2,3 and the needle was in.  It hurt really briefly, not much at all. I'm sure it was a very thin needle.  I barely glanced at the ultrasound, because I didn't want to see it in there by my baby.  It took about a minute and he had 3 vials of fluid out.  Baby remained still throughout.  After he pulled the needle out, I looked at the ultrasound and you could see where the needle had been.  

She gave us another 20 second look at the baby, and then I was finished.  I had my rhogam shot (in the hip, and it hurt more than the amnio!), and I stood up.  I had asked for the FISH results (24 hour results on 3 chromosomes), because after a solid month of stress over the triple screen, I couldn't handle the thought of waiting for 2 more weeks. 

I was fine walking out, and fine going home.  I did feel very sore in the tummy area, and I randomly had small stabbing pains where the needle had been.  Baby was very active, no bleeding or leaking of amniotic fluid.  I spent the entire day in bed watching movies.  I literally didn't want to move for fear of losing that baby, so I stayed put.  The kids were very understanding.  

The next day it felt like I had been punched in the stomach, but I was ok otherwise.  I took Jack to preschool and then I grabbed my planned flight to Vegas at 4 pm.  

I'm not sure, if I could do it again, that I would go on a trip.  Vegas requires a lot of walking, and I was pretty sore.  It was nice to spend time with husband. 

I feel relieved, blessed.  I have sympathy for the women who are going through the waiting game right now, because it really messes with your mind.  I was so unbelievably stressed for almost a month, so now that it's over I'm left feeling exhausted.  I need to catch up with work and everything, but I'm slow getting back into it. 

Wigging out

I often wonder what it would be like to live a semi-normal life.  I say semi-normal, because my husband has informed me that there is no such thing as normal.  I understand that, I just have a very clear picture of what normal would be like for me, and I'd like to have a chance to try it out!  

So this week, husband is in Las Vegas and I'm supposed to leave on Thursday to meet him.  Unfortunately for me, I have been advised by the genetic counselors I've been seeing to get my amnio on Wed. morning.  I asked specifically if I could fly on the next day, and she said a 4 pm flight should be fine.  On Wed., I can't walk, lift, cook, clean, or anything.  Thank God for MIL's.  

But, this leaves me with a big gaping hole as to what I would do if it was true, if my child had downs.  Most people say they wouldn't do anything, that it's just my lot in life and I need to accept it.  Well,I can say here that I am not really prepared to take on something like that.  Right now, in my panic and complete terror, I can honestly say I want to run away from this entire thing. 

Anyone who knows me knows that I've been through my fair share in the past two years.  I don't even feel the need to recount it all.  I understand that others have been through more, and I feel for them.   I don't seem to draw any strength from that knowledge, but I do have much more compassion for others than I did, say 5 years ago. 

What I feel right now though, is that I've been through too much for ME personally to be able to deal with this.  I am on the edge.  I get upset with the kids because my nerves are shot, I can't find a lunch kit in the morning and I start to cry.  It doesn't help that my husband is not here.  I feel very alone.  Any decisions I make, I will make on my own.    You can't have a relationship via blackberry.  

So, I guess I will update tomorrow.  It's going to be a long day, and an even longer one tomorrow. 

Long time, no see

I didn't even realize that I haven't updated this blog since November, because time has whipped by and I've taken to avoiding the computer if I don't need it for work.  Many things have happened though:

- I'm now 18 weeks pregnant.  I only had just found out the last time I posted and I wasn't prepared to share until after I passed my first trimester.  Baby #4. 

- Husband got a nice raise, which caused me to relax slightly about baby #4.

- Husband has been working 7 days a week since November

- Had a nice Christmas

- Got a 1 in 60 result on my triple screen, which had me in a tizzy. Turns out my dates are wrong, so the hospital that my doctor sent me to for an amnio insisted I retake the test before I subject myself and baby to the chance of miscarriage.  Still waiting for those results.

- Husband's boss decides he's not going to pay him the raise anymore, so now he's working 7 days a week and making what he did before.

- Kids have had flus, colds, and strep throat since January 1st.  Little J has been to school twice since January 5th.   Now it appears he has croup and big N has a fever.  

I'm kind of ready to give up.  I can't make myself want to do anything around the house, because I had been very excited to move and now it appears that will not happen.  I really hate this house, with everything on one floor and no playroom for the kids.  

I know, I'm lucky to have a house. So many people don't have one, and I know that many are losing jobs as well.  I shouldn't care about his raise, because we have enough to live on.  I just get so angry though, because he's gone so much and the only thing that made it worth it was the extra money so I could get a babysitter or maybe put N into daycare two afternoons a week.  Now I am faced with being on my own for extended periods with 4 kids.  

You know, I have purposely isolated myself here.  I find it so stressful taking them out and about that I don't really seek out friends.  They argue with me about going anywhere, and if it's not fun for them, forget it.  Husband says they are spoiled, and I am sure they are.  I've come to hate even going for groceries or to Costco, so I just don't do it.  

Obviously being this down isn't good for the baby, but there isn't much I can do about it. I'm just waiting for the test results to tell me whether I have to go through with an amnio, and taking care of one kid with a fever and another with his 4th cold of the year.  Not a good start to 2009.