baby to toddler

What happened to my baby? I've heard mothers say that before and have thought maybe they were being a little dramatic. I swear that I had a baby just a week or two ago, but here she is almost 21 months old. She is such a delight to have in our home. There are two sides to this cute little person: uncommonly happy or unusually irritable. It is my full time job to anticipate the mood that she will wake up in each day. I am so amazed at how stubborn and strong willed she is already. Nanny wasn't displaying such strong qualities yet by this age. Dant walks around most of the day shaking her head from side to side saying "no mommy" for no apparent reason. She is incredibly opinionated about life already( I am inclined to believe she acquired this trait from her grandma). She is already picking on her big sister, why doesn't Nanny defend herself? I don't know, but they sure are cute together most of the day. Nanny goes out of her way to accomodate the many changing moods of Dant. I appreciate this quality in Nanny since it is one I don't possess myself. I find myself growing impatient with the roller coaster of emotions coming out of this little person. It is so amazing how different my girls are from each other, by this age Nanny could count to thirteen and pronounce almost every animal. She just seemed older than Dant does. Nanny was putting on her own shoes and coat and had so much more hair than Dant does. I still think of Dant as a baby and wonder if I am holding her back somehow. I don't know if this is normal or not but it has been interesting to observe.

some new hope!

About a week ago I started having an impression that I needed to take medicine for my Mal de Debarquement but I didn't know what and I didn't know which doctor to go to. I hadn't really found a doctor up to this point that had even heard of my disease. Well, a month ago or so I was on a website reading about my MDDS and I remembered seeing a doctor's name that was in Ogden. I hadn't checked him out previously because I also found my vestibular therapist's name on a MDDS website and he knew nothing about it. Monday morning I woke up and told Kerry that I needed to go to this doctor and all of the sudden his name came to my mind. Dr. Owens. I opened the phone book and there he was Dr. William Owens eye and ear neurologist. I called and told them I had MDDS and they told me to come right in (how often does that happen with a specialist?) I went in and they ran some very thorough tests, I then saw DR. Owens who is extremely knowledgeable about my disease. He used to be a doctor in the Navy so he saw many sailors go out to sea and get this problem. He also worked in Long Beach California where all the cruise ships were and had many patients get ill from the cruises. The way he explained it was I have an inner ear disease called irritable labyrinth with motion intolerance. It never goes away but it can go into remission. I guess that's what happened when it finally went away last time. He prescribed me a drug that he says helps 9 out of 10 people, he said the 10th person usually has it forever, but I don't feel like that will be me. For some reason when people with the irritable labyrinth go on boats or other forms of motion their ears don't calm down and they get Mal De Debarquement syndrome. I have been taking my drugs for four days now and I am praying hard that it will work. All the Young Women leaders fasted for me yesterday and we went to the Temple together last night. The doctor said it would take weeks for the drug to get into my system, so I probably won't know for a while if it's working, but I really believe it will. I also now have hope that I will be able to travel again!!

time goes fast

I just can't believe it's been almost two years since my mom died (next thursday). It's so amazing the process that you have to go through when you lose somebody you love. When she first died I was so glad that she wasn't suffering anymore that I didn't grieve hard. I also think I was so occupied with being five months pregnant and then having a new little baby that I didn't have much time to dwell on it. It seemed like after the baby wasn't a baby anymore and I started realizing that the baby never got to know her grandma it really sunk in. I think I started mourning when everyone else was kind of getting over their mourning. I am still grateful everyday that my mom isn't suffering anymore and that she's done with all of the worldly trials. Nanny still talks about her quite a lot, and I don't know if she really remembers or if she remembers because we still talk about her a lot. Sometimes she will actually get very sad and say that she wants her grandma. I've explained to her that we will see grandma again someday, so now she thinks that we need to not use anything that was grandmas because she will want it back! She keeps asking me if grandma wants her kitchen table back and I keep telling her that we will keep it for grandma until she is ready to use it again. Isn't that cute! I'm trying to take very good care of that kitchen table so I don't get in trouble when I get to heaven, we all know how much she loved that table!

something to talk about!

Wow, I finally have something to talk about this week! I actually did quite a bit this week. I started off the week on Labor Day by going to a movie with my friend Annette. She took me to see a matinee (Stardust). It was a pretty good movie, we went with another friend that we grew up with, Wendy Thomas. After the movie Annette and I went out for lunch at the Union Grill. That part wasn't so fun, it made me sooo dizzy to sit at the restaurant with people bustling around. Anyway, it was nice to get out of the house for a while! Tuesday we bought Kerry a new/used car because our Lumina has broken down a few times and we're tired of putting money into it. He got his heart set on a cute little 07 Pontiac Grand Prix at Hertz in layton but I thought it was more than we could afford. Two days later I looked in the classifieds and there was the same exact car but an 06 and it was $4000.00 less. The deal was too good to pass up so we bought it. The girl that sold it to us works at the church office building down in Salt Lake so we all drove down there and brought it home, it only has 18,000 miles on it and it still smells brandnew! Kerry was pretty excited to have his fun new car, he's having most fun with the CD player, his Lumina didn't have one.

Nanny started preschool on Thursday, I can't believe how fast the summer went by. She was excited to go back and I have to admit I was kind of excited for her to go back too. It's only five hours a week that she's gone but it's still a little break for me which is nice. I never really take my girls anywhere anymore because it's too hard to keep track of them when the world is jerking around like it does, so I'm glad she's got this little out two times a week. She and Dant are starting to play with each other a little bit more which is so cute to watch. I hope they will be the best of friends!