The MomGate MG1

So this morning after our walk, yes can you believe it - Ben has made it so I have NO excuse to take at least two walks a day ;), I decided to run to the grocery store to get some staples I needed for the weekend.  I am making a batch of Pioneer Woman's Firecracker Shrimp for Marcel's party... but i digress.  And While at the store I learned why my mother hated bringing people with her grocery shopping.  Since all of the 'multiple kids carts' were taken, I plopped Cait in the basket and Gabe was walking along side me chattering away.   Well when I went to check out, I found quite a bit of unwanted items in our basket.  The only item that I couldnt give back was the bag of Pupperoni's that Gabe insisted Ben had to have.   It was so cute listening to explain that Ben loves them... although Ben has never had them before to my knowledge.

Granted... Ben DOES indeed love them.  Ahh well, dog treats are definitely good to have on hand.  Hopefully I will get some pictures of Gabe sleeping with Ben this weekend... IF the child sleeps.  Ben and Gabe are attached at the hip now, definitely best friends =)

OKay this is going to be a full on mommy rant because I honestly need to get it out of my system before I explode. 

My son Gabriel has NEVER been a good sleeper.  From day 1 he hated to sleep.  Luckily Caitlynn is a good sleeper but that is another post...

Well ever since the kids got Rotavirus, Shawn took pity on Gabe and let him sleep in our room.  I warned him it was a baaaaaaaad idea.  Granted it did make it easier to deal with the diahreah before it exploded all over the sheets, Gugs, floor.  Believe me cleaning THAT up at 2am sucks as well.  And during that period of a week when he was sick, he mastered the poop on the potty thing.  Which is a good thing... however, we STILL cannot get him out of our bedroom. 

"Oh just let him cry it out in his room" you say... um yeah... if anyone heard my moans back when Gabe was an infant you'd know that he can seriously cry for 4+ hours straight, projectile vomitting all the way.  And that right now just get Caitlynn all riled up and then SHE can't sleep either... I told Shawn this was his monster and he had to deal with it... but obviously, he would rather bitch about getting no sleep then helping me retrain Gabe how to sleep in his room.

"It's a phase, he'll grow out of it" you say... he has NEVER wanted to sleep, either alone or with someone.

"You're just exaggerating" says the pediatrician.  Yes, I am exaggerating that my son sleeps approximately 5 hours a night, no naps, and very little 'down' time during the day.  I am being completely honest.  We follow the same bedtime routine every. single. night.  The kids pretty much say they are ready for it and we have offered Gabe the option to stay up, he wants to go upstairs.  Thats when the REAL problems begin.  7pm Gabe says 'Night Night' and curls up on the dog bed on the floor in our bedroom. (don't get me started about THAT one) I hear giggling and laughing coming from the bedroom.  Okay thats fine, he is playing with his toys and Ben.  Then I hear the thuds, bangs and occasionally barks.  Go in there and try to discipline him.  Often I go in there to see an entire box of tissues shredded, or a book destroyed, or last night, he slept in a big pile of his pullups.  He falls asleep around 11pm and then 5am he is back up full force, after his 2-3am brief period of wakefullness.

This past week has been so bad, his eyes are completely sunken in and bloodshot, he can't run in a straight line from being tired and STILL he fights it.  Even when I try to go to bed with him I can't.  He will just constantly babble right in my ear, thrash around and then keep going.  Seriously, when I am feeling ill I cannot even go to sleep early because he will sit there and keep me awake.  I am literally at wit's end.

Maybe I should consider seeing if Ama and Gaggee will take Caitlynn for a couple nights and days next week while we once again deal with 4+ hours of nonstop tantrums from Gabe at bedtime.  Or maybe I should just give in and put a TV in his bedroom so he can fall asleep to that... because sad to say it, when the TV worked in the master bedroom it wasn't this bad.  Turn on PBS Sprout and while he didnt always fall asleep quickly, at least he wasn't destructive.

::beats head into the desk:: As I write this, I am one solid mass of pain.  I was pretty much on my feet all day running Gabe into the ground to hopefully exhaust him enough that he'd sleep tonight.  You see, we are supposed to be going to a Memorial Day party on Sunday... and while I REALLY want to go, if Gabe is acting like he is right now... it would be an embarressment to take him anywhere.

::crosses fingers that this gets better soon:: I think I am gunna go crank up my music really loud so I cannot hear Gabe, he knows to just go to the potty if he has to go (although he apparently would much rather have us bring him just in case he needs the BigE potty to poo) or at least tell us. 

Well I've been kinda broken up since we had to give Sebastian up.  He was just too much dog for us.  So I have casually looked on Petfinder and attended a couple of 'adoption' events nearby just browsing.  Most shelters in the area will not adopt to families with children under age 6.  I can understand their caution and I appreciate it!  It doesnt stop me from looking however. 

Well the Meriden Humane Society is a great no kill shelter.  They work in conjunction with the Meriden Animal Control (housed in the same building) to try and adopt out as many animals as they can to the best possible homes.  You should see their 'cat room.'  It is a paradise!  No tiny little cages for the majority of the adult cats there!  Granted the kittens and the cats who are not used to socialization, or fixed, do not get the luxury of the big room.  

We have adopted two cats from them and foster an elderly cat so she can live out the rest of her days in comfort.  Yet I never thought to look their for a dog.  Granted that a large portion of shelter dogs in our areas are Pitbulls.  And yes I know pitbulls are not inherantly violent, BUT they are just too big for us. 

So when I dropped off my application, one of the volunteers asked what I was looking for, and when I mentioned a small - medium kid friendly dog she said she knew JUST the dog.  So out comes Ben.  I kid you not when I say this dog looks like a miniature golden retriever.  Beautiful dog, and he came right up to me to get some pets and cuddles.  In fact a lady who came in after I had been sitting with him for a little while thought he was my dog coming in for a visit =) 

So I added to my application Ben's name, he isnt even on Petfinder.  Apparently he was surrendered a couple of weeks ago.  When I took him for a walk, he wasn't even phased by the big dog's barking at him, and he was friendly with everyone except for an English Bulldog that walked by.  But hey, dogs are like people right, they don't have to like everyone. 

So we will see what happens.  I am in no rush, I want to make sure I find the perfect dog for our family... I don't want to run into another issue like we did with Sebastian.  So I am sure in the next week I will be schlepping the family down to meet Ben and see how he handles Gabe.  Granted Gabe is a loving child, but some dogs don't care for children.  As of right now the shelter has seen no signs of aggression towards anyone, and he ignores cats.  So keep your fingers crossed for us!

Well I sat in front of my computer last night in complete and utter shock for quite a few hours.  Unable to do much of anything.  A WoW friend of mine that I have known for close to 5 years passed away.  Even now this is hard to type through the tears.

Some people think you cannot be friends with 'pixels.' And that just because I dont hang out with someone in Real Life that I cannot be friends or become attached.  That is just not true.  I have more friends online then I do in real life.  Probably because I do not make friends easy and I know I am not the easiest person to be around a lot.  But Feolas I considered a friend.

I met him when I was looking for a Molten Core raid.  I was denied entrance to one because the nefarious leader did not want more mages in it.  Ultimately I began my own raid, but most of what I learned about Raid Leading I learned from Feolas.  He was cool calm and collected, it was VERY rare that I ever heard him angry on TS or Vent.  He put up with a LOT of egos, a lot of stupid shit and always managed to keep his raids running smoothly.   I know I was not always the raid leader that Feo was, but I tried very hard to emulate his style.  I just saw how his calm manner kept the raid running smoothly even when we were to be blunt, sucking.

When he took over the Winter Wolves current 25 I was excited.  I honestly enjoyed running with Feo - he was fun to joke with and if you needed encouragement, he would give you a pat on the back that you would need to excel.

He always seemed so full of life and excited about the game when you heard him on Vent... I wish I knew he was hurting as much as he was.  I will miss him very much... and I honestly wish this was just a sick joke.  I know it does not do well to dwell on grief... so I am going to try and focus on the good times I have had messing around with him on the internet.

And I am going to make sure to express to my friends, real life and online how much they mean to me, even if I do not always show it.

Rest in Peace Cameron.  I am a better person for having met you.

Alright so today was not a happy day for me... and I am wondering what else is going to go wrong.  If you read this blog or my facebook you know that I was excited about the opportunity to make a little extra money a week by making sure my neighbor's kids got on the bus and the other was walked to school.  It wasn't much but it would have paid for my groceries.

Well I get a phone call last night from the neighbor letting me know that her husband was just fired and so he was going to be watching hte kids in the morning.  My neighbor agrees that it seems awfully convienent that he gets fired a week after she gets a job and just in time for the summer.  Ahh well... that's my luck =(

Well the second thing... is I apparently ate something bad this morning... since about 3pm I have been incredibly nauseous.  And of course Gabe pulled down the child gate just in time to watch me wretch in the bathroom.  The feeling comes and goes but man does it suck >.<.

So now I am wondering what else is going to go wrong tonight since my misfortune always runs in threes.  And wow, last week it was rotavirus, this week it is apparently food related.  Oh Happy Day.

Well I just want to say... that Gabe is officially potty trained.  50% of the time he goes to bed he wakes up dry AND he hasnt poo'd in his pants in quite a while.  And all it took was a bad case of Rotavirus!

The only problem now is he is still getting the feeling down, some nights he will run to the potty for a minute, fart, go back to bed then come running back in another 5 minutes.  He hasnt quite figured out the difference between gas and the real mccoy.  Ahh well, at least I haven't had to change a Gabe sized poo in a while!

So I am saving our pennies... and we hope to take the Gabester to Rainforest Cafe soon as a reward for a job well done.  Lets just say, he is gunna loooooooooove it.

So I just had to dart to the computer to write this post before I procrastinated enough that I forgot my line of thought... like I do with so many blog posts I MEAN to write.

When I was growing up, a neighborhood was a serious community.  We watched out for each other, kids played together, adults had dinner with each other, block parties and when one family went on vacation, the neighbors watched their houses, pets and mail.  These days it seems like neighborhoods are not as close knit... at least where Shawn and I have lived.  Granted we lived in low income housing and the cops were coming daily to one apartment or another... since we moved to Meriden I have found in my next door neighbor a good friend AND a good neighbor.

My neighbor also has two kids but they are older then my two.  She has always been friendly and open with us and has helped us out a lot.  From handmedown clothes, toys and baby gear, she is always there for a friendly chat or a helping hand.  Since we moved in, she has been out of work on disability from an accident at her last place of employment but as times are rough she has been looking for a new job.  Well she found one close by that lets her work Mon-Friday during the day, the only problem is getting her kids off to school. 

Well She just happened to be talking about it to me when I was commenting on needing to find something to pad our income a little.   And voila, I volunteered to start seeing her daughter on the bus and walking her son to school in the morning.  Not only is this a wonderful thing for her, she has someone she trusts looking after her kids, but it is great for my health and the kidlets.  Now I can't weasel out of my morning walk =)  Even though we have all been sick for almost 2 weeks now, my energy level has started to soar.  I FEEL better mentally and physically even though I have been in the throes of an intestinal virus. 

So something that I offered to do to help my neighbor out, has ultimately helped me more!  Ahhh how I am glad Cathy is my neighbor.