Hillbeans, enjoy your trip to OC! I know how you feel about those anniversary dates.
With my dad, in the beginning, it was like reliving his death. Really rough time for me. But this past year his death date was the day we left for Hawaii and I felt like I had to remind myself, which made me feel guilty. It was 8 years, which is basically a third of my life, and it really seems distant to me now. That of course makes me sad, that's it has become "normal" to not have my dad around, but like you said, I think it just becomes a fact of life.
Ryan840, I'll say a prayer for your grandmother. Hopefully she'll pull through. I'm sure it's hard on all of you to watch her deteriorate.
GM, sorry that Olivia has been fussy lately. Maybe she's teething? Or possibly getting a cold or something like that? Hopefully she'll be back to herself soon.
Vald, good luck with the job offer! I hope it works out for you. I'm sure you're ready to be finished with the job search.
SL, I think you're right about posing that kind of question to toddlers. Madison is a point, well for several months now, where she must do everything herself. All I hear is "I can do it by myself" and, well, she can't! So when you give her a choice, but not really, just like your sock example, she totally thinks she has made an independent decision and is very cooperative.
I think Lucas would make a cute pirate, but I guess there will be a lot of them this year. We're trying to go with a Disney theme this year too cause we're leaving for WDW on 11/1 so I figure it will be a cute last night before our trip, but I'm not so thrilled with their stuff either. I was going to get Madison a JoJo costume, but I made the mistake of showing her the website and she is sold on Mickey. I tried to push for Minnie but she wasn't interested.
BnB, I wanted another girl this time too for the same reasons as you. People looked at me like I was crazy when I said it though. Not that I didn't want a boy, but I know I want more kids so whether this one was a boy or not didn't really matter to me. Heck, if all my kids were girls that would have been fine with me too! Not sure I would have thought that way prior to having Madison (cause I really wanted a boy with her cause I had lots more experience with them) but once I had my little girl I realized I didn't care what gender the rest of them are. Of course now that you've got 2 and 2 you've got like the ultimate family I guess!
Alice28, I admit that I prefer to watch BB without my husband too. He used to like the show but now he said it got boring and he spends the hour complaining about it. And sadly I am somehow way more productive when he's not home so that's kinda nice too. For example, I had both kids sleeping by 8:30 tonight, but the past 2 nights when Joey was home Madison was up till almost 10 and Henry was in bed later than that. Okay, I realize that his bedtime is sorta irrelevant since he wakes up so much, but my goal is to get him used to going to bed on a schedule since he will have to once Madison starts school.
Zalansky, that's great that Connor likes preschool. And great for you too cause those few hours to yourself are nice. When Madison started school last year I felt guilty sending her off at first but it was so nice to have a few hours a day to go to the the gym and shower in peace.
If I can figure out how to resize it, this will be my new sig photo. I feel bad not having Henry up there, but since my husband reformatted the computer a couple of months ago I haven't figured out how to do it yet. My old program was not reinstalled so I'm at a loss. He thinks he's all computer smart but clearly not like he thinks!
Henry just woke up to eat and after about 5 sucks he's sleeping again. That's my one complaint, that he's so sleepy it's a chore to make him eat. He'll sleep around 3-4 hours at night though if he actually eats well at each feeding. He's going back for another blood test tomorrow, well I think so anyway. He's still jaundiced, at least 7.0 cause it's visible and apparently under 7 and and they don't have that yellow look. His dr said it's optional, but she's under the impression that my husband wants it done. So I told her that's fine, but that he will be taking him then and he's post-call tomorrow so he'll have time to get to the lab before it closes. And we had our urologist appt yesterday which was such an incredible waste of my time and gas money. It was far away (local office didn't have any appts till 8/29-not sure why I couldn't have waited though) and he was seen by a dr for all of 2 minutes. They looked at his boy area, said "Yep, there's the hypospadias. See, he's his urethral opening and here's the faux opening where we'll be relocating his opening when he's around 6 months." That was it. His opening is pretty high up, close to where it should be, so hopefully the surgery won't be so bad. So we go back when he's around 6 months and then they'll schedule his surgery and discuss it in more detail. The aftercare is what I'm dreading though, they have to catherize him for 3-5 days, everything is wrapped in a bandage, and he has to wear some sort of 2 diaper set-up: 1 for poop and the other for the catheter drain. And he has to take an antibiotic and some bladder medicine to eliminate possible spasms. It says that they only give tylenol/motrin for pain, but I'd think he'd want more than that. I mean they're moving around parts of his body sorta, and it requires a general anesthetic. They also circ him at the same time, I think sorta required. My ob had said that sometimes they use the foreskin for the repair so I guess that's why they do a circ since they may need to "borrow" skin and then there would be a piece missing.
Well, I should force Henry to wake up and eat so I can get to bed now and hopefully he'll sleep till 2 or 3.
That's a major undertaking- FF- can you come to my house and cook? 
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. I hope Olivia starts sleeping better soon. It seems like they all go through cranky stages at one point or another.
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. I just get so excited when I see them 
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