A few pictures and a long update...

Damaris is doing better with her fussiness and teething, but still has been waking up to eat on and off since November, and I am getting tired of it…more because I think it has become habit instead of need. I am thinking of just letting her cry it out - which means less sleep for me for a few days, but in the end more sleep for all of us. We had to do this with Titus, too. She has a couple new things she has done this week. She now initiates playing “peek-a-boo”. Before we would throw something over her head, she would pull it off with a big smile on her face as we said “boo”…now she is grabbing things to put over her face just so we can play the game :). She has also learned that she can “barrel roll” to get to places. This is actually really nice because before, as soon as she got to her stomach she started screaming within 10 seconds. Now she just keeps rolling and actually likes to play on the floor for a little while. She is also gaining more balance and strength in her legs and stands if we hold her up, and I think she wishes she knew how to pull herself up, but she can’t. She likes to see what is going on!

Titus started on Wednesday with a little goop in his eyes, progressed to red and puffy on Thursday and even though Benadryl was helping, it wasn’t going away. Yesterday we took him to the doctor and he has pink eye – we have no idea where he got it since he hasn’t been around kids since last Sunday. He hasn’t really been itching his eyes either, which I thought was a huge sign for pink eye…so I was pretty surprised to hear that this was the diagnosis. They also think he has a sinus infection so they put him on antibiotics. I figure we have gotten off pretty easy overall with Titus and sickness – this is the first time in his life that he has been on an antibiotic. I waited in line for 30 minutes to find out that his prescription wasn’t ready and had to go back at 7 PM last night with both kids by myself since Stephen had a movie night for the church, waited in line another 30 -40 minutes and finally got home with the kids a little after 8. His prescription for his eyes is only 3 mL (a teaspoon is about 5 mL) and without insurance would cost someone over $70!!!!!!!

Stephen has been doing fine – it is vote year at the church so that is kind of hard because our lives could change pretty drastically in the next few months depending on that vote. He is serving on the DBMD (district ordination board for ministerial students in The Wesleyan Church) and the Twin City Ministerial Association (Gas City and Jonesboro areas) has asked him to do the sermon for the Good Friday community service in March. So excited but nervous since there will be hundreds of people there – by far the largest audience he has spoken to.

I am not doing so well…I think I am at my emotional end. January and February are by far the most stressful of the whole year at work, and on Thursday all said and done by the time I left in the morning and was home for the evening, it was 11 hours. With not getting much sleep between both kids and the stress of work, I am not handling every day things so well. I get angry at the kids easily, and snap at Stephen. I am so sick of Damaris spitting up I could scream…I know she can’t help it, but it just makes me angry – I am tired of cleaning up myself, the floor, her, our furniture – and now that she is eating a lot of different foods, it stains. Last night I had to just walk out of Titus’ room with him screaming because I was so frustrated and angry – I had just put the drops in his eyes and he was throwing a fit about me putting them in, crying like crazy – which defeated the purpose of me putting them in his eyes in the first place. I think what bothered me the most was how long and how frustrating it was just to GET the drops in the first place. After I got Damaris down for bed I went back in to try to calm him down and try to get the drops in again, but that took about an hour and Titus and I both ended up falling asleep on the couch watching Cars. I woke up at 10 and put us both to bed :)

Anyway, such is life, people go through much worse things than me, and I am sure I will feel better in a couple days, but just felt like venting my frustrations today…