Aria's First Birthday

Baby Aria has had an amazing journey in life within her first year.  I was not faithful in blogging during her birth so I will try to shorten the story.  Her mom was a week past her due date when the doctor decided to go ahead and induce.  I was able to go the hospital with my mom and sit with my cousin and the rest of my family while we  anxiously awaited Aria's arrival.  My mom, step dad, sister and her two girls, and me and Maddy all went to O'Charley's to grab a bite to eat.  Right as we were getting to ready to pay and leave my mom received a phone call from my grandmother who was in tears telling my mom to please pray for Aria something was terribly wrong. All we knew was that Aria was having trouble breathing.  In my mind it was no big deal...my grandmother exaggerates as it is...and the nurses had a real hard time getting Maddy to breathe as well.  I shrugged it off and was like yeah, whatever...baby is fine.  My grandmother calls again to say it is bad and we need to pray.  Well, by this time I am shocked and had a bad feeling this baby would not make it.  We all go to the hospital and hear the news that Aria might not make it.  We had no idea what was wrong other than they could not get her stabilized and she was having problems breathing.  My aunt was just boohooing and told us the experience she just went through and that after they took Aria to the NICU, the nurse came back to the room and told my cousin that she needed to pray for this baby.  For a nurse to say that tells you something is really wrong.  They told my cousin that they weren't sure if they could keep Aria alive long enough to make it to another local hospital (T.C. Thompson).  Because they could not get her stabilized they called for the staff of T.C. Thompson Children's Hospital to come to the hospital Aria was born in.  By this point we are all just so overwhelmed with sadness and shock and I felt so guilty having Maddy there because I really felt Aria was not going to make it and my cousin would go home babyless and here I have my perfectly healthy baby. They allowed my cousin to go back and see Aria, which was another sign that they thought she would not make it as well.  The other hospital staff arrived to work on Aria and were successful in getting her stabilized.  They hooked her up to an isolette that was on a stretcher and wheeled her off into the ambulance.  Seeing her wheeled off like that is just something I will never forget. Babies are so innocent and helpless as it is and seeing her lifeless body on that stretcher was just too much.

Once transported to the other hospital it was determined she had a diaphragmatic(sp?) hernia and something else...i already forgot what it was. They said diaphragmatic babies usually do not make it so once again odds against Aria were not good at all. After an hour or so at the local hospital, it was determined she would be transported to Egleston's Children Hospital in Atlanta, GA and placed on an ECMO machine.

Here she is in ATL hooked up. The amount of machinery that was attached to her was unreal. I will post a pic of that as well.

All those monitors were for this one baby...Aria. Her hernia was causing her heart to be on the wrong side...they were not sure she even had both of her lungs and her intestines were pushed up into her chest. They found she did in fact have both lungs, but underwent surgeries to correct the hernia. She spent like 50 something days in the NICU I believe it was and she was able to go home sometime in July i think. Aria has defied many odds and has been a proven miracle. On May 23 we celebrated her first birthday at Harrison Bay State Park. I will post the pics now.

J-Fest 2011

This was Maddy's second year attending J-Fest.  Last year she was still eight months old and not all that mobile. This year she was 20 months old and very mobile lol.  At one point I thought I was going to pass out from the heat because I was constantly chasing her around in that hot sun.  I love being outdoors, but it was so extremely hot that day and all I wanted was a nice cool pool. When we first got there Maddy took off and because I wouldn't let her go exactly where she wanted she decided to pitch a fit right in front of the sheriff's van of all places lol.  She was tired from the very beginning, which made for an interesting day.  My mom took these pictures and I'm glad she did because even if I had a camera with me...I wouldn't have gotten any pics, except for the back of Maddy:)

this is Jenny (I think) from Addison Road.  I absolutely loved their concert and would really like to go see them again.  I like all of their songs and she was very energetic.

 Here I am trying to prevent Maddy from pitching a fit in the middle of the aisle lol.  She wanted to go up the steps to the stage and security kept standing next to me at one point. I wanted to tell him not to worry that I wouldn't let her go past a certain point, but decided against it. She did not want to leave and was starting her fit process.

here is another fit lol...poor Maddy...she was so tired and hot



She finally told me she wanted in her stroller...didn't take but maybe 10 seconds and she was fast asleep with her drink and baby lol.

Francesca Battastelli

Big Daddy Weave

Deer Maddy

I'm not sure if I talked about Maddy getting to pet a baby deer or not, but as you can see she did lol.  My stepdad found this baby deer just laying in the middle of the road.  He knew someone else might run over it as well as the fact that my mom would be in heaven if she got to pet it.  My mom came in the house and told me I needed to go look outside and by her tone I knew it was something big. When me and Maddy went outside we found my stepdad holding this baby deer.  This baby deer was so precious and cute. After Maddy got to pet it and my mom got to hold it, we took a walk back down to where it was found and went into the woods to let it go back to it's mom.  I have never in all my life been that close to a baby deer in the wild, let alone pet one.  Maddy was able to accomplish this within a year of her life lol. Maddy loves animals...especially dogs...so she really enjoyed being able to pet it.

Random updates

I want to start this out by saying WOOHOO!!! I have finished my first two classes of school and feel more relieved than I expected.  After going through those first two classes I realized I needed to get a better plan together if I wanted to successfully graduate.  I have planned out my days and know exactly what I need to do on each day give or take some.  I have completed all but 1 thing on my list today, but I am ok with that. Today was a short breather for me because I somehow managed to get most of my work time done before my Maddy responsibilities kicked in.  After she went to bed I got started on my new classes and am just so proud of myself for staying on task.

I found myself thinking a lot about Maddy's birthday today.  I am so excited because we will be boarding a cruise ship in Miami ON her actual birthday.  I said just last year that I would love to take her on a cruise on her birthday and low and behold that wish came true lol. Most people make a really big deal for the first birthday.  I want to make a super big deal about each of Maddy's birthday's so I am in search of THE birthday outfit.  I want her to have a birthday dress for opening presents and then another casual birthday outfit for the cake. I was able to find some dresses I liked, but everything I liked was $70.  Don't get me wrong, Maddy is totally worth $70 and more but it is out of my price range for the moment.  The dress above is one I am contemplating using.  It runs around $35 and is kinda cute...not really what I had in mind but we'll see.

This is the dress I am talking about.  Since she is turning two there would be two candles on the cupcake and then under it would be her name.  I envision her wearing this with her pigtails and that beautiful smile.  I will post other pics I found too.  I'm not sure how to make the pics all the same size without saving them and tweaking them through an image editor...I do not have that kind of time so I will do my best to make them proportionate lol.

That's about all I can find.  I'm not sure exactly what I am looking for...guess I will figure that out later.  Because we are cruising on her birthday I plan to have her birthday the weekend before.  I'm starting to think about themes.  Originally I was going to do a princess theme, but she is so enthralled with dogs that I'm almost thinking of having some kind of dog theme.  How do you make a dog theme cute for a girl? I haven't figured that one out yet lol.  I'm hoping next year she will be able to help me figure out what her theme will be.  Speaking of Maddy, she is starting to watch more and more tv.  Sunday I think she sat for a whole three minutes...maybe even five in my lap watching the wiggles.  She loves to see wags the dog.  She would point and had a smile plastered on her face. When the camera would show wags again she'd just scream, "DOGGIE!!!" to the top of her lungs...not really the top but really loud lol. I got tickled at her because she thought the show was funny.  I think she is going through her last "mommy" stage and it is breaking my heart.  I got the semi-privilege of taking her to school today. She had an extremely hard time letting me go. Her class was outside playing so I thought that would help her out because she lives to play outside, but as soon as I tried to put her down she clung with all her might to me. I think she likes me taking her to school because I don't get to very often. I wonder if since I pick her up from school she associates me with "rescuing" her from school to go home. I figured she was just happy for me to spend time with her this morning and didn't want it to end. My mom picked her up from school today-she usually takes her to school for me because she goes in town everyday for her job and we live 45 minutes from the daycare, so i struggle getting my time in when i take and pick her up from daycare-and once Maddy woke completely up we played and had dinner and had a good time.  I let her stay up a little later because I did not have to rush to work or rush to get a school assignment done so it was a lot more relaxed.  Around 7:50 I decided she needed to go on to bed so we began our bedtime routine. Here lately that consists of either running away when she sees the bottle, or deciding she wants to eat bite bites, or just simply says, "no." Tonight she resorted to deciding she wanted to play on top of saying no. She is the type of person that wants people right there with her all the time and she includes everybody. So I decided to take her bottle on to her room in hopes she would eventually follow me. My plan worked and she came in and closed her door. She resisted in me picking her up to rock her but she gave in when i offered to sing with her. She drank her bottle as usual and I sang, which is usual but she wanted me to keep on and keep on. I sang for a while and then decided she was looking really sleepy and didn't want her falling asleep in my arms so I told her I'd sing one more time then it was night night. I did exactly what I said and she just started boohooing. She normally just lays right on down and goes to sleep but tonight she sat all the way up with her arms up towards me crying for me to pick her up. I felt so bad because she had real tears and I knew she really did want me to stay. I knew if I did stay she would keep herself awake so I told her I loved her and to sleep good and night night and walked out. She did stop crying, but it broke my heart. "Mommy" stages can be difficult at times, but I am going to enjoy this one because it may be the last time.

Mean and Alive

I have always loved this song...I love the way the music sounds and of coarse taylor always has some sort of relatable lyrics. I've always envisioned this song in a relationship kind of way, but I have realized it sparks an emotion from me that I had never really realized or thought about. As I listen to this song I quickly realize that I picture my dad. I have a lot of ill feelings towards my dad. I was never good enough for him and I always felt stupid. To this day I struggle greatly with feeling inferior to people and I have a huge fear of looking stupid. There was only one thing my dad never could say anything about...anything negative that is, and I think I subconsciously held on to that and made that a priority to maintain. There are things I know, such as in the Lord's eyes I am beautiful just the way I am, but how to apply that to my life I have no idea. It's like my head knows these things, but I guess it doesn't really know what to do with it lol. I do not like a lot of things from my childhood, but a lot of these things have really just made me a stronger person and has helped me be who I am. It has definitely been in the back of my mind as I raise Maddy. I do not allow words such as stupid or dumb or any other derogatory(sp?) words around her. If someone wants to say stupid, they should say "silly" I know Maddy will hear these words at one time or other but she is too young for all that negativity. I worry a lot of times over her self esteem. I want her to have positive self esteem regardless as to what other people may tell her. I think she will struggle with her esteem some as every teenager does, but I do see her being ok with herself.

This is the last video I will post in this one lol. I was actually at this concert and had no idea this was being filmed. This music video is from when they were in Chattanooga back in December 2009. I am posting this because I have really been missing my friend I have talked about, the one that decided we could no longer be friends. I have had him on my mind here and there and wonder how he's doing. Today someone from work asked me about him and I just felt like saying really? you really had to ask ME this?! He was a really good friend and was often my support system. We really seemed to bond and it breaks my heart that we are no longer friends. There was a group of us from work that would hang out from time to time outside of work and one thing we did that I absolutely loved was rockband night. This is where I realized I was decent on drums lol. We had so many laughs, primarily because one of our other friends is just a nut and attempted to sing songs and it was just hilarious. Our first rockband get together was when I was pregnant with Maddy. I think it was either June or July before she was due. I felt a little awkward because I was pregnant and I was pregnant out of wedlock, but I ended up having a really good time. We had one more rockband night before we were no longer friends and that was my birthday last year. Maddy was 6 months old and was just learning to attempt to crawl. I got to play a couple of songs but the rest of the time I had to watch because Maddy kept getting stuck in a laying down position or she was hungry or just wanted to be held. I tried to drum with her on my lap but she would grab the sticks and I got scared she would get hurt so I decided to just watch. I cannot wait till Maddy can play rockband with me because I think we will have a ball. Once I had Maddy my entire life changed. Friends I was friends with were no longer really friends because they had no clue what I was going through. Even my best friend that I am talking about tonight and mine relationship changed somewhat. We were really close still, but I guess I just felt that nobody understood me anymore because I was a mom and nobody in our group was. This isn't why we are no longer friends...it's just me talking lol. I could sure use a good friend like him right now. I think about him a lot and hope he is happy and doing well. I know he is doing somewhat well because he got out of our work lol. That has to make anybody happy hehe. It has been a huge relief to actually get some of my feelings out even though I still have a lot of school to do. I am going to just make myself make time to have some down time here and there because otherwise the stress bottles up and I melt down like I have been lately.

Bye Bye and more...

This post is going to be here there and everywhere lol. I will start off by saying that I've been thinking about my great-grandmother a lot lately. I posted this song because it makes me think of her. I was extremely close to her and miss her a whole lot. If I stop and think about the fact that she has never really met Maddy it would make cry. She got the chance to meet my oldest niece before she passed away and I would be beaming from ear to ear if she had the chance to meet Maddy. I know she would be proud of Maddy and she would be proud watching me raise Maddy and would provide a lot of support and encouragement to me. She always knew what to say when I was having a hard time and I could sure use her encouragement now more than ever. As you all are well aware thanks to the many blogs and facebook posts, I have officially started school. Next week will be the end to my first "semester" of college. I am really stressed because I should have been working on both of my final projects throughout the course, but with being a single mom with no babysitter and my work load at work, that has been nearly impossible. I usually go to bed around 2 or 3 a.m. every day and that's just doing normal class work. I am beyond exhausted and I can't tell you the number of times I almost just quit. I have realized in order to really succeed in college, apart from doing all the hard work, you really need a support system. People who will stand behind you and motivate and encourage you to keep on keepin on. I have realized even further that you really really need that support when you are a single mom trying to do it on your own. I have to be by own support system and it has been extremely rough because there are times I feel I just can't go on. Getting a college degree is a very important goal of mine that I just have to reach. I have always wanted my degree, but I want it even more now because I want to be a good example for Maddy. I have to finish my degree for myself as well...just to say I CAN do it. Wanting to quit the first week or two of school is not really a good sign that I will in fact finish school. As silly as this may seem, I have to constantly remind myself that if the moms on teen mom can be a full time mommy, student, and maintain full time jobs...I can do the same...can't I? The one mom that stands out the most is Kail because she has to be her own support system in essence. I would love to sit down and talk to her and ask her how she does it. I would say for her she just has a strong amount of determination and has realized at an early age that if she wants something she is going to have to fight to get it. I have determination, but I am the type of person that needs motivation here and there from someone other than myself.

I absolutely love this song because I feel this way a lot of times. There are other people in the world who have serious situations going on and I realize this, but what I am going through at this moment in time seems like a mountain to me. There are days I feel so completely alone and that feeling can be overbearing sometimes. I hate not being able to openly discuss my feelings, even on here, because there are times I just need them to be heard instead of just keeping it inside and "dealing" with it. The only thing that is helping me to stay "strong" is Maddy. Maddy is going through a difficult phase right now and throwing a lot of fits. She says "no" to pretty much everything I do and expects to get whatever she wants at that moment. She sticks by people who will give her whatever she wants and nine times out of ten that isn't mommy and that is hard on me. I know this is part of being a mom and I'm ok with that, but it is emotionally hard on me and there have been times I just go to my room and cry over it. Another thing I've been struggling a lot with lately is the fact that I can't support me and Maddy on my own. I give over half my paycheck to her daycare and the less than half of my check is for bills and other necessitites for Maddy. My check doesn't even cover all my bills so I have to pick and choose which bills I am going to pay each month. I don't really see an end in sight as to when me and Maddy can be in our own place. I feel like a bum a lot of times as well as a constant guest. I feel a few other things that I will choose to not say on here. I am very grateful that I have a roof over mine and Maddy's head and food to eat, but at 28 years old I should be able to live in my own place...even if it's rented. I know the Lord will provide that to us when it's the right time. I really feel that He is waiting for me to be completely content with what He has given me thus far. I have made great progress in this area because when I first started out I really really resented my situation and when I say situation it has nothing to do with Maddy and everything to do with my own personal decisions. As you can see I have a lot of sad emotions right now and I know they will disappear soon...soon may be over a year and a half from now(that's when I should graduate school) but I know it will all be ok. I do know everything will work out the way it is supposed to...I have no doubt about that. I also know the Lord is in control and I just have to lean on Him. Like all my other "sad" posts, I'm just having a rough time and need to get it out instead of harboring it. I do believe I will end here, but will post one more song. This is really hard cause there are so many songs I could talk about that have meaning to me. I might do a short "music" post after posting this and then I need to get going on school lol.

Couponing

I want to first start off and say that I was introduced to couponing at least two years before the show Extreme Couponing came out.  My mom found out about couponing a few years ago and was so excited over how much money she was saving that she wanted to get me involved as well.  I knew I needed to learn it, but I just put it off.  I have watched a few episodes of Extreme Couponing and it motivated me to put into action what I already knew.  I am really trying to crack down and watch the amount of money I spend  because being a single mom does not allow much room for extras or for any mess ups financially.  I've decided to start small and work my way up to the big league to where I get $1,000 worth of groceries for free.  My first trip was last week to Rite Aid.  They had many good deals at Rite Aid, but I didn't get my list together in time to enjoy most of the sales.  I purchased Crest toothpaste which normally is $2.99 and used a .75 coupon and then I received $1.60 in rewards back.  The total price I paid for the toothpaste was .22. To seasoned couponers any amount that is not free for toothpaste is not that great because toothpaste and toothbrushes are free a lot of the times.  This week I went to Walgreens and got a toothbrush that was normally $2.99 and paid .99 for it because I got $2 in rewards back.  I'm not finished this week with my savings, but I would like to start talking about the deals I use because money is not free by any means and I think a lot of people try to find ways to stretch out their check.