Bad Dog!

Some of you know that my Mom and StepDad are going through a divorce right now which is why I was in Florida for a few days. Helping her sort stuff out, etc. Also a reason I made the blog private for now. You'd be surprised at what info you can get about a person through facebook, myspace, or blogs. Ha! People are Internet detectives these days. So if you really want dirt on someone it is not hard to find. But anyway I digress....My poor husband had quite the adventure while I was gone. I went to Florida for a few days and my whole house falls to pieces! I get a very tired sounding phone call from Michael on Wednesday morning.

Michael: "What a horrible night"
Steph: "What's wrong baby?"
Michael: "Well I fell asleep watching the hockey game. Then Lily woke up about 3:15. So I went to walk up the stairs and saw S*&% all over the stairs. As I walked up to the hallway there was trail of diarrhea from our bedroom, down the hall, and then down the stairs."
This is life with a poodle that is "sensitive"
"So I am cussing Charlie and I get Lily back to sleep after about 10 minutes and decide to let the dogs out in case Charlie isn't "done" so I let them out and of course Cesna (lab) disappears. I say F%$* it 'he will come back' and go back inside to clean up the diarrhea. 1.5 hours later and our carpet still looks horrible, I have used a whole roll of paper towels, all our carpet cleaner and its now almost 5."
Steph: "Oh No!"
Michael: "So why go back to bed? I start doing the dishes and realize the diaper bag with the dirty bottles is outside in the car. I go get those and low and behold Cesna appears. So I get him in the house (cussing him the whole way in) and start doing the dishes again. Well a few minutes later I am like 'what is that SMELL!?' I look around and Cesna is laying there in the kitchen. I walked near him and he has white spots all over his face and smells HORRIBLE! I think he rolled in something dead! But I don't have time to give him a bath so I stuck him in the garage and finished getting ready, etc. I get to daycare and I am complaining about my morning and Miss Sarah says 'oh he got skunked' I didn't even THINK of that. But I am sure that is what it is"
Steph: "your kidding? Now our garage will be skunky! We need to get some tomato sauce STAT"
Michael: "And on top of that after getting up at 3:15 I was still almost an hour late to work. And tomato sauce don't work. We need to get a container of hydrogen peroxide, a half cup of baking soda and a tablespoon of dish detergent"

So last night when I got home from Florida and Michael had picked me up from the airport, he was outside in the dark deskunking our dog. Cussing the whole time.

Did I mention Lily can say a resemblance of "bad dog!" And now you know why.....Poor Daddy.

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Swim Time

Since Saturday was absolutly beautiful we decided to spend some time swimming in the ninety degree heat. Lily got to wear her new bathing suit from Aunt Tanya. She looked so cute! And although I thought the water was freezing, she seemed to love it. I took a couple bath toys out there and she just splashed and splashed. We didn't stay out to long because being the horrible mother that I am I didn't have any sunscreen, but she enjoyed the little bit of time we had.

Mad to happy in .02 seconds


I'm too cute for my bikini

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She Walks!

Today Lily took her first steps. On two different occasions this morning she took two steps in a row straight towards her Mommy! Then the third time she took one and then fell!

It was a great family moment. Michael and I were both there and I was so proud I cried. She is getting so big so fast and this is just a testament to that.

We celebrated by blowing up the swimming pool and spending some time outside on this beautiful day!

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Jimmy Buffet is the Devil

And I can prove it....

I am sitting at my desk with a pounding head. Why oh why did I think I could get up and come to work the day after a Jimmy Buffet concert? I will say this is not one of my brightest moments. But as I laid in bed this morning convincing myself that I was just going to call in and lay in bed all day Michael came in with an epiphany.

"Get up! You are not going to waste a vacation day on being lazy and hungover! You need to save them to be with me and Lily"

What can I say?? It worked. So I rolled into work about 1.5 hours later than usual. But still before most people...especially on a Friday. And now I am suffering! It is so bad I cheated on the diet and had a half of a bagel with cream cheese and fully intend on eating Wendy's or something very similar for lunch. Jimmy Buffet makes us do bad things...

We had a blast tailgating the concert last night! It was a beautiful day. The weather was perfect...the crazy people were out. Dudes in grass skirts and coconut shell bikinis? Does it get any better? All in all a good time.

This was our first Buffet concert and I have to say it is Kenny Chesney for old people. Instead of seeing really hot and young looking girls and boys walking around shirtless you saw sixty year old fat people walking around shirtless. Quite entertaining. Same type of atmosphere as well. Beachy, drinky, crazy...all the same.

But in the end I am still a Kenny girl at heart. Tailgating was fun but the show was no comparison. Mainly because I could karaoke any Kenny song on demand. I didn't know some of the less popular Buffet songs. Although I should.

Will post pictures soon!

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Strawberry Puree

Yes that is what my little girl's diaper looked like yesterday. Gross? Yes. Scary? Extremely. Now when I say strawberry puree I mean it. In all forms. Color. Texture...well maybe not smell.

Daycare called me at work and told me they thought she was "bleeding" and they would save the diaper for me to examine. So of course I rush to daycare and totally freak out when I see the TWO diapers with this poop in it. So I rush her to the pediatrician with no appointment. I busted up in the window and said "I don't have an appointment but I need to be seen NOW!" Crazy Mom alert anyone? So of course they were really nice and took me right back.

As I previously posted Lily has been on antibiotics for her ear infection. She has been on this antibiotic at least three other times so I didn't think it was that. The only thing I could think of was an allergy. I changed her to the "next step" formula which is milk based. Was it that? Or maybe the cinnamon on the apples she has at dinner the night before. That was new. Or maybe she swallowed something and it was dragging down her intestines and cutting the lining! Could she bleed out. AAGGHHHH I was going crazy.

Well apparently the doctors/pharmacists forgot to mention this is a side affect to Omnycin (spelling??). ALL THREE TIMES SHE GOT IT! WTF!!!!! It's not blood but it looks a hell of a lot like it as the pediatrician put it.

So crisis averted. Whew. Now I just have to plot my evil revenge on the tons of people involved in this medicine that never said anything about blood red poop! I mean seriously are they trying to give first time moms a heart attack? I am watching you people!

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*******IMPORTANT******

I have decided to make my blog private for awhile and see if I like it better. There are some crazy people in the world and sometimes I may put a little TMI on here. I don't think I need Joe the Plumber reading about my nipple trauma from breastfeeding.

This will add an extra step for you to view it which consists of a log-in. I use my yahoo account so you don't have to sign up for gmail or anything and the process is really simple. If you are an avid reader please email me at stephainemcmillan@yahoo.com and I will give you permission to view the blog. I will probably do this is the next week or so to give people time to email me. As always I am open to feedback. If the log in totally sucks let me know and I may revert back.

I will automatically add my followers to my permissions so if you want to make it easier sign up as a follower on the left toolbar. Thank you for understanding and respecting our privacy.

Okay that last sentence totally made me feel like I had the paparazzi stalking me. FUNNY! I should add the standard "in this difficult time." haha!

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Easter 2009

Easter was really fun. Other than our battling illness with Lily it turned out to be a beautiful day. We wanted to go to church with the Bakers but with Lily still fighting a fever/bouts of fussiness we decided to forgo torturing her. So I went early to get her antibiotics and go grocery shopping for Easter Lunch. I made a delicious smoked pork chop and sweet potato combo. Lily liked it a lot. Diet friendly especially with the yummy side salad. You can really tell in these pictures the weight loss. Especially my handsome hubby. The blue on him is almost irresistible!


We gave Lily her Easter basket when she woke up. Still sleepy eyed and feverish she wasn't too interested in the cute clothes the Easter bunny picked out. And the tweeting bird was not as big of a hit as Ms. Bunny hoped. But she was sick. What was a hit? The dollar plastic eggs. Why is it always the dollar toys that rock it out for babies?

Lily got to wear a pretty dress and prance along the yard in search of eggs. We did get a nice little surprise on the very first egg. If you look close you can see a little lizard hiding under the yellow egg. We went to grab it and heard a rustling. We were close to scaring her for life or into never doing another egg hunt again!

And this is my favorite. My little lady all by herself looking at an egg. She is getting so big and so perfect. The dress, the weather, the family, made it all a perfect first Easter for the little Princess!

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Ear Frustration

Lily has just not been herself for the past week. She threw up a few times at daycare, she was sleeping erratically and sometimes taking four hour naps. Something was just not right. On Thursday I noticed ear drainage. Great another freaking ear infection. This would be the second one that we gotten post tubes in mid February. So we started the Floxcyin ear drops. On Friday evening I noticed she was warm and had a slight fever. When I took her temperature it was about 103.4. Higher than our usual ear infection temps. She usually hovers around 102.1 when her ears are bothering her and it only last about a day. So we Tylenoled her up and she seemed to feel a little better. Saturday was a whole other ball game. She was not acting right at all. Her eyes were glazed over and she was very sleepy. When she woke up from her afternoon nap she was sweating like crazy. So we took her temp again and it had spiked to 104.3. By now I am panicking. I gave her more Tylenol and gave her a cool bath while Michael called our doctor. They said to take her to urgent care since she still had a fever after a few days and it tends to get higher in the evening so it would probably get higher as the night went on. Higher than 104.3??!!! I guess 105 is there cut off to go to the emergency room. Not doing a good job of not panicking. So we rush to the urgent care. We get there....she is fine. Her temp is has dropped as evident by her trying to play with everything she can get her hands on. She is talking and laughing. Seriously? It made me feel a little less crazy when they took her temp and it was just under 103. So we did a good job of lowering it with the bath, etc.

It took them over an hour to see us, the nurse was rude, and they wouldn't even clean her ear out like our doctor normally does. Of course it is a massive ear infection. Probably one of her worst. I asked if the tube fell out and she said she didn't think so because the ear was draining but she couldn't see through all the pus. Uhhhh gross. The Floxcyin ear drops couldn't even get through the infection which is why it got worse. So we get a script for oral antibiotics while still continuing the ear drops and are sent off. Of course its Saturday before Easter and no pharmacy was open at seven on a Saturday so we couldn't even get the prescription filled that night. But we had to stop and get our first bottle of Motrin and she told us to alternate Motrin and Tylenol to control her fever.

Sunday was dicey at best. She was up every two ours the night before and woke up burning up. After the Motrin kicked in she seemed better but at about the three hour mark post medicine you could feel her getting really warm again. But we got her started on the antibiotics and she was well enough to Easter egg hunt.

You know what really frustrated me about all this? The tubes. What the heck was the point?! I am starting to feel like tubes are like c-sections. They hand them both out like fruitcake at Christmas. Oh this is what we do for babies with chronic infections. Well it ain't working. It appears Lily is going to have to "grow" out of them. Well why did I get the tubes if I still have to keep her on antibiotics. Hundreds and Hundreds of dollars later I am still in the same spot. We are averaging one a month post tubes. Ridiculous. I am so frustrated. I do remember the ENT mentioning if she continued to get them they may have to remove her adenoids. Great another thousands of dollars surgery. Funny that the worst one we get is post tubes. Oh and that tube better we in there or I am going to be MAD! But this is just the frustration talking. I just want her well.

I did notice on Sunday two huge teeth in the back of her mouth. She now has both her top molars. Ten teeth people. Ten. Wow! Ten months old with Ten Teeth. I think that explains the previous week of weirdness. I did find a picture of myself at about one and it looked like I had about 14-16 teeth so she def. takes after her Momma.

We will see if I get a call today for her temperature spiking again. Poor Little Lily.

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Birthday Party Change

For those of you that keep up with the boring blog world of the Eads Family. I need to inform you of a date change. Lily's First Birthday Party has been rescheduled for June 20th to ensure attendance by our loved ones. June is a busy month and people already had stuff planned. Good thing I posted the date on the blog or I might not have ever known! Also Aunt Shannon had to work at graduation in Gastonia that day so this works out for the best.

Funny Story: Lily almost yakked in my mouth this morning. I leaned in for the good-bye kiss on my way to work....I can see it in slow motion now.....GGGGGIIIIIIIVVVVVVEEEEE MMMMEEEE AAAA KKKKIIIIISSSSSSSS LLLIILLLLYYYY....BLLLLLAAAAAHHHHHH. Luckily my cat like mommy reflexes came out unscathed without even any on the wardrobe. She threw up twice yesterday afternoon at daycare so I fully expect a phone call to come get her today. Great start to a Wednesday morning huh? Even worse we were out of diet soda this morning. I guess Michael should be thankful he made it out of the house alive since I didn't have any caffeine. Just another day in Paradise!

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Operation Walk-o Lil-o by the Competitive Parent

We have been working with Lily all week with walking all by herself. She did manage to take a half step, or as I call it a Quasimodo step, by dragging her foot and still standing. That was on Sunday. I am not sure it is a good thing to get her walking but as a mother this is my duty. Or as I define Mother's Duty: the act of making sure your kid does everything before everyone else's kid so you can brag about how much cooler your kid is. Although Lily is now the oldest in her daycare class so there is no one's face to rub it in. All the kids near her age moved up to the one year class to make room for new kids. They knew not to ask me...I mean how else was I going to have the smartest kid in the class.

Our approach to the this operation has been mainly trying to get her to go between us. But we recently discovered a love of Elmo and green frogs. So we taunt her with those two toys. The green frog got the half step.

On a side note I have a guilty confession. I let Lily watch Seseame Street yesterday. The sad part? She actually watched it. She never watches TV. But it highly interested her. And can I ask when did SS become an hour long? Are they trying to kill parents slowly? And there are not many commercials. But it kept her busy while I made dinner. Hey whatever works.

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43 weeks

Random shots from our "photo shoot" of the girls in my kitchen. I have to admit some of them turned out really well! Morgan was my best subject with Lily going through random bouts of screaming fits. I got some gorgeous shots of my little niece though! God what I wouldn't give for that hair!

This is from the of March so they are a little old but I thought I would play catch up.

Renee recently moved to Florida so it was a sad gathering as this will be the last time all three of the girls are together for awhile. Or at least until we start celebrating one year birthdays...which are not that far off. With Morgan in May and Lily is June the girls won't have to go too long.

Does anyone else see my life in fifteen years with these three. One word...TROUBLE. I think the three Moms are going to have their hands full. Boys, clothes, and god knows what else. At least I will have these pictures to remind me of when they were cute and innocent and still thought Mommy was number 1!

I love this the ones of the girls in white. They look like little angels. What is so funny about taking pictures of the three of them is that Lily and Morgan are hitting each other in the face and Renee is trying to keep the peace. Or playing Mommy and trying to get them to stop crying. Because lets be honest one of them is crying at all times whenever we try and get pictures of them together.

I love this shot of Morgan. It shows off her little teeth! She looks so happy in this picture. Morgan is actually a month older than Lily but Lily has definitely got her beat in the teeth department. Lily currently has eight teeth. With the way she has been acting this week I think she is working on number nine.


This was our last basketball game this season against Boston College. I only got to go to two of the four this year. And when I cam Lily joined us. She was good as usual. We decided to snap some shots in front of the awesome fountain outside Carter Finley. It was COLD that night. And she is getting way to big for this carrier. Actually I don't know why it is not packed up. It felt worse than when I was pregnant!

At least this game we had a red outfit for her! For about three months we had no red...bad juju for a state fan.







We finally broke down and bought Lily a wagon. After months of searching at consignment sales I broke down and went to Target and got one on sale. These things are like gold at yard sales and consignment sales! I have been searching since I was pregnant.

She LOVES it! The whole time we walked around the block she held onto the strap though. I don't get it but hey she was having fun. At one point she was laid back with her leg cocked over the side just chillin'. So I think we found our favorite summer activity. Wagon Rides!

She is taking big girl baths now. It is a lot easier for me. Except for cleaning the tub. Now I have to unstick all of the duckys, remove a million toys, and wash those before I even get to scrub the tub. It ends up being a lot of work. But now she can splash freely!

Other updates: Our yard sale was kind of a bust. Apparently Wake County has a makeup day for school (we are year round) on Saturday so we didn't get that many people. On top of that apparently everyone in the county decided to have a yard sale. It would have been a great day to GO yard saling. We made about a hundred bucks which is a lot less than last time and I still have way to much stuff. We are debating on whether to donate it or try again. We may have to donate it soon because we just don't have the room. We didn't sell the two big things I wanted to get rid of: the bed and a table. But our daycare worker wants to bed so we are just going to donate it to her. I figure it's the least I can do for not dropping my baby on her head.

Easter is this weekend. We have Lily's Easter basket ready and Grandma and Grandpa are coming to visit. We are even considering going to church! Wow huh?! I am going to make a nice meal for Sunday. The start of a new family tradition. That is comforting to me. I like tradition.

I started getting the logistics of Lily's Birthday Party in order this week. Save the Date...June 13th.

This is Lily training for her Birthday. Nothing puts you in the mood for a party like beerfest!

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Sounds Like Life

I am sooooo glad it is Friday. Well sorta. Other than having the yard sale in the morning I am excited it is the weekend. This week has been dragging by at a snail's pace. Can I just say you can totally tell how the economy is affecting all areas of business. I am normally slammed at the end of the month but this month? It was like any average work day. So time is inching by and I am finally done with this week. Yay!


Between family dramas, work, Lily, and just life I am drained! I thought getting to bed before 11pm every night would have a positive affect but honestly I have been so tired for weeks. I even feel my patience slowly getting less and less (if that is possible). For example this morning I was getting Lily dressed. She is not a morning person...just like her Momma. Well I am trying to stand her up to get her shirt straight and untwisted. Of course she gets spaghetti legs and starts flailing. So I keep trying to no avail and then finally just let her sit (still screaming by the way) and then she flails back and hits her head on the wall. Not hard but enough to startle her into another bout of screaming. I just wasn't in the mood for it. Not that there is a mood for fussy baby. So I picked her up and set her in the crib and stepped away to regain my patience. I'll be honest it is not always easy being a parent. And the little things like pitching fits, which is common when you have a baby, just sometimes get to you. They don't understand that flailing and screaming flusters you and that they could hurt themselves. She just knows that she still wanted to be asleep. Me too, kid. Me too. Luckily God does give you parent patience and it doesn't take more than thirty seconds to regain composure and scoop them up with lots of kisses. Which immediately calms the fit of course. Her shirt was still twisted at the end of this though. Oh well, you learn to go with it. It is weird, normally the fit wouldn't bother me but I am glad I know enough to step away and relax for a second when it does.


Maybe it's just tiredness, maybe it's stress. I am not sure. But I heard a song on the way to work. I love country music. Well let me rephrase. I pretty much love all music that I can understand but I have been on a country kick for about a year. It made me laugh because it put things in perspective. The song wasn't spectacular but the words were right on target. Basically we get stressed, our babies scream for no apparent reason, and you know what....suck it up. Haha. It's a good ol' self pep talk. Enjoy!


Sounds like Life to Me by Darryl Worley
Got a call last night from an old friends wife, said, I hate to bother you
But Johnny Ray fell off the wagon, hed been gone all afternoon
Well, I know my buddy, so I drove to Scullys and found him at the bar
Said, Hey Man, whats goin on, He said, I dont know where to start
Sarah's old car startin to fall apart and the washer quit last week
We had to put Mama in the nursing home and the baby's cuttin teeth


Sounds Like Life To Me
I didnt get much work this week and I got bills to pay
I said, I know this aint what you wanna hear but its what Im gonna say
Sounds like life to me, it aint no fantasy
It just a common case of everyday reality
Man, I know its tough but you gotta suck it up
To hear you talk youre caught up in some tragedy
It sounds like life to me


Well, his face turned red and he shook his head
He said, you dont understand, three kids and a wife depend on me
And Im just one man, top it off we just found out that Sarahs two months late
I said, Hey, bartender, set us up a round, we gotta celebrate
Sounds like life to me, aint no destiny
Yeah, the only thing for certain is uncertainty
You gotta hold on tight, just enjoy the ride
Get used to all this unpredictability, sounds like life
Man, I know its tough but you gotta suck it up
To hear you talk youre caught up in some tragedy
Sounds like life to me (sounds like life to me)
Sounds like life

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