I Channeled Shirley MacLaine

We are home with baby Evelyn and she is recovering nicely.  Thanks so much for all the emails!


It's hard to complain about a stay at Childrens Hospital when you get to leave with a healthy child, but I'm an expert complainer so I can just run right over that difficulty.


Is there anything worse than a hospital stay?  I've been through it with both of my children now, and I've learned that a hospital overnight basically consists of being told by people that, "Rest is going to be the best thing so make sure everyone gets a lot of it!" and then being woken up every 25 minutes by the same people who gave you that order.  


Our poor baby was so disconcerted by her metal hospital cage crib.  We could not get her to settle in the crib and ended up needing to hold her to get her to sleep.  Which was understandable, but the furniture the hospital provided must be made of materials that can be wiped clean and kept germ free, so holding her on the couch was akin to making an attempt to sit on a water slide without going down the slide, you know, while holding a baby.
 Since we could not get comfy, my husband, Evie and I ended up playing an exhausting game of musical chairs all night between the couch/bed, rocking chair, crib and the floor.  Yes, at one point I woke up and my husband was on the cold, hard hospital floor.  It was probably good for his back though, right?  He's so selfish, I can't believe he was thinking about his back right then.


Her surgery was early in the morning, and by that night she was inconsolable because she was so overtired.  She could not settle herself and I think she was sick of being held so that didn't make her happy either.  Finally at 2am I pulled a Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment and started screaming "My daughters in pain, she needs her pills, GET MY DAUGHTER HER PILLS!". 


Here is Shirley MacLaine playing me when I felt my daughter needed more Tylenol with codeine.


That method of crazy proved quite effective (thanks, Shirley!) and she was given some pain meds that finally knocked her out.  When they came in at 4am wanting to wake her I met them at the door and tackled them to the floor.


Needless to say, they were happy to discharge us the next day.  


That's all for now kids.  Tomorrow maybe I'll tell you how I almost broke my husbands foot and called the police on my sister all in one day!

Operation Smile

Today is the day that our 9 month old will have a surgery done to fix her cleft palate.  I wrote this ahead of time so it would post on the day of her surgery.


If Evelyn was born in another country, she would not be having her palate surgery done today by a talented and accomplished plastic surgeon in a well known Children's Hospital.

She would likely, instead, be failing to thrive.  Instead of 22lbs of chunk-o cutieness, she'd likely be struggling to get the nutrients she needs.  If she was born in an area where breast feeding is truly the only option....well I don't want to think about what would happen because babies with her issues can not form a latch and therefore can not breastfeed.  


If she was born in China it is possible that she would be left on the streets because she was born with a birth defect.  She may be placed in an orphanage and put on a list of babies that people can get more quickly than "a healthy child", as long as they are willing to deal with the imperfection that her parents could not.


That's not even taking into consideration the majority of mother and fathers who would not dream of abandoning their child due to a cleft lip or palate, no matter what country.  There are moms just like me who are desperately trying to feed their babies, trying to find care for them somewhere and somehow.


I think Operation Smile is known for the wrong thing.  Before my Evie came along, all I knew of OS consisted of the many pictures of celebrities visiting other countries and having photo ops with children who had clefts.


The truth is the celebrities don't really matter.  What matters is the work done by the medical teams.  They go into areas where babies, children and even adults can finally get the kind of care that has come so easily to Evelyn.  They will perform hundreds of surgeries in one day, simply to fit in everyone they possibly can.  They will tirelessly raise money to try and return to help the ones they could not fit in.  


Aside from surgery, one of the most significant things OS does is raise money for simple items via their "Giving  Catolog".  You can make a donation and purchase bottles, antibiotics, warm blankets, and even fund a surgery.  My favorite thing to purchase are the bottles.  The hospital sent us home with 6 Mead Johnson bottles, making our lives so much easier.  I always wonder what would have done on our own?


When Operation Smile visits an area they leave major change in their wake.  Babies are able to eat, children can have a better shot at a normal future, and adults can finally fit into society.  The stigma of cleft in a small village is horrible and those afflicted are usually treated quite poorly.  If we pushed aside people with clefts in our society, we would have missed out on Tom Brokaw, Joaquin Phoenix, Jesse Jackson, Stacy Keach, and Peyton Manning.


I encourage you to "Like" Operation Smile on Facebook , you will be amazed by the stories in your Facebook news feed. 


This is my little PSA about cleft lip and palate foundations and why they are so important.  Babies born with these issues will have eating, hearing, speech and dental issues.  But things can be so much better if they just get the supplies they need for feeding and the surgeries to correct their very treatable issues.


I won't ask you to give money, but just give them some thought today on behalf of Evie.


And also, if you call it a "harelip", I will have to beat on you just a little.

Let's Be Done With Creating Smart Appliances Now, Mmmkay?

Since moving into this house, I have been so freaking confused by all the of the noises.

Everything they make now is energy efficient, which is wonderbar.  It's always good to be efficient, and it would be nice if there was still some water left for my grandkids someday.

What I didn't expect was that every single appliance I own would chatter at me all the live long day.

Seriously, there is nary an hour that goes by when I'm not being taunted by something that is supposed to just wash or cook something and leave me the hell alone.  My appliances need so much attention!

I have a dishwasher that beeps when you start it, when it is finished, if you leave the door open, and that's not all!   If it washes my dishes and I do not open it...it BEEPS.  What the force??  With all that I have going on I need a dishwasher insinuating to me that I'm running my home so badly that it needs to remind me to unload it?  Come on now!

My washer does this thing where it starts working and then stops... like it was all a big joke.  It does this over and over for about a minute as apparently it is sensing how big a load is in the washer so it the can tell how much water to use and how much time to spend on our clothes.

But me?  I just moved into this house from the ghetto.  So when it kept starting and stopping I kept trying to open the lid (you know, because looking inside would mean I would suddenly understand the issue at hand) and it would be locked.  My own washer locked me out!  I could not access my clothes if I had desired to spend more time with them!

So then I would press the pause button, all the while wondering why a pause button is needed on a washing machine, and then it would unlock and let me look inside.  Then, when I figured out looking inside failed to heap wisdom upon me about what the issue at hand was, I would close the lid and wait for it to start up again.  But no!  The pause button!  5 minutes later I figured out I needed to unpause my washer from its paused state, but by then it was too late!  The washer "sensed" that it needed to cancel my washing session because I'm to big of a dumb ass to launder my clothes properly.

This scenario happened about 4 times until I finally realized that when I shut the lid of the washer and press the 68 buttons required to feed it all the necessary information, it means business.  Want to a add a sock?  Forget it, moron!  The lid is locked and loaded and you need to move on.

When my washer is done it sends out this melodious ring tone-esque noise that sends me running for my phone.  After I swear at the Apple Gods for making my phone beep and not letting me know why, I move on with my life.  But wait!  The washer will again beep after awhile, just to remind me that my lazy ass needs to prioritize and move my clothes into the dryer.

It's so exhausting.  And I haven't even dried my clothes yet.

I won't bore you with the details off the dryer, but let's just say it made me cry once.

The oven and the microwave both have all sorts of beeps and reminders, but I can't write about those yet because I still haven't figured out what they mean.  Well, that's not true.  I tell myself they mean it's time to order food for dinner, but I know it's not true. Deep down, I just know it's NOT.

Remember when we didn't have energy efficient stuff and we could all be in charge of our appliances and live in the same ignorant bliss that the GOP does regarding global warming?   Ahhhh.   Those were the days.

Facebook Friday! You Know You Love It.

Time has come once again (say again in British accent, please) to celebrate Facebook Status Friday.  A feature that has been missing for far too long from all of our lives.  


I'm not sure what happened to make it disappear for so long, but consistency is not my greatest attribute and I'm going to guess its disappearance has something to do with that issue.




1.)  Yesterday I found out that Justin Bieber made 53 million dollars this year.  This news was told to me by my radio while I was scouring my vehicle for $1.08 to pay for an iced tea.  I was not happy for him.  If only I had cooler hair.


2.) While walking into our church to pick up Nora from vacation bible camp, my baby pooped herself so bad that we were both covered.  I had to throw out her clothes in the church nursery, bathe her with wipes and borrow a diaper from someone I don't even know.  You know, because why bring a diaper?  I'm just going to run in and pick up the older kiddo and go straight home!  Fool.  On the ride home my five year old confessed that she had forgotten to wear underwear to church. I bet Mary never had these issues with Jesus.


3.)  We just found out how much gas logs are going to be for our new fireplace.  Seriously?  Why is something you are just going to set on fire so freaking expensive?  Also:  We will now start considering offers from anyone interested in purchasing them for us.


4.)  Isn't it funny that people still worry that women may be too emotional to hold an office like President of the United States?  Yes, those emotions you see them having are called being a decent human.  It's the same thing that keeps them from cheating, lying, and becoming weird sex addicts while pretending to be a trustworthy elected official.  Learn to embrace their normalcy, America.


5.)  My Mama's been gone for 8 years this weekend.  Call yours and give her some phone hugs today!


6.)  Finally, if you have not already, please watch Neil Patrick Harris as he opens the Tony Awards.  He should be making 53 million dollars a year.

This Will Be A Wiener Free Post

I think Mr. Wiener is a huge douche nozzle for humiliating a woman like Huma Abedin, so I won't contribute, thus providing you with a Wiener free environment.  Relax and enjoy it, my friends! 


I have been absent for a bit as I try to settle my family into our new house.  


That's an adult way of explaining that I've been unpacking boxes while watching Laguna Beach reruns via Netflix.  


Also, my baby started crawling.  Which means my life as I once knew it is now over.


So anyhoodles, thought I'd catch you up on the happenings around us here in Texas.  I'm finding our adaptation fascinating.  The weather has been near 100 every day now for awhile, and if this happened while we lived in Wisconsin I would have hid in our house, making out with the air conditioner and keeping 911 on speed dial seeing as how one of us would surely die.  


Now we wake up, usually without checking the weather, and just go about our day.  We spend a lot of time outdoors doing various things, and you know what?  I haven't died yet.  Not even close.  My daughter still runs and plays and the world keeps turning.  Fascinating!  


So, here I mentioned that I would soon be eaten by bobcats (are you seeing a pattern of my dramatic thought process yet?).  


I also whined in that post about giant scary snakes and spiders.  So, I thought I'd catch you up on Amanda Vs. Wild.  


I've taken some walks around the lake and lived.  


I listened to music and pretended I was relaxed, all the while looking for bobcats, mountain lions, trolls, Nessie and Bigfoot.  


Sure enough, Mother Nature did not let me down.  Are you ready for what I saw?










Brace yourself.  










It's super scary.












Here we go:

Turtles are terrifying.

OK, so finding a turtle is just plain fun.



Alas, I did find a very scary snake, justifying all my hand wringing and anxiety about the wild life around me:

The world's smallest snake.  Also, it's dead.





So, it turns out perhaps I made too much of things.  Strange.



BUT.  Something has happened that has me seriously concerned.



 This time I'm certain I have cause for alarm.

Crop circles.  In. My. Backyard.

Sigh....It's always something.

The worst thing is that my husband doesn't believe me.  Can you imagine that?  We have messages from extraterrestrial beings in our backyard, and he thinks it's just from the grill cover laying in the grass. 

Fool.  I hope they take him and not me.  

Then when they give him back I'm going to tell him I don't believe what he says happened.  And I know what they do when they get their hands on a human.  And it ain't like you saw in E.T. my friends!

So, that's us!  

Fighting the wild life and now the paranormal, all in a day's work.