Well, Well, Well... I simply have no excuse. 2013 regurge.

One of my friends from high school was talking about standing in the shower and thinking of all the things that had gone on in the past year.  She said "OH CRAP, I better start writing some of this shit down!." That got me thinking. I have blog, and have had one for nearly ten years.  Yes Dear Reader, if you are reading this now, I have had this for ten years this coming September.  I remember I started it because I wanted to talk shit and be able to remember all the adorable things that my children do/did.  
     Everyone has the best of intentions with their first child. They go whole hog, scrap booking and keeping memories.  Then the second one comes and, not so much.
     So, in the spirit of continuity, I will do a regurge.  It's been a long time since I have done one.  now I have to go get my phone and get some pictures of of it to post.  I know I don't have to say that I will be right back, because you don't actually know I am gone, but I will say it anyway, just to be contrary.  
 Be right back.

That took a while.  Not that you know that, but it did.  I got a case of what I like to call "Cindy Smedley Sidetracked" I was making photo collages, because too much happened this year, so I had to consolidate space.  

Of course I like to take silly pictures with the kids.  We all know this.  It's a fact.

Also, I am huge on costumes.  I made Ayman an Obi-Wan Kenobi costume for Halloween a couple years ago.  We got to use it again for Star Wars Night at the Stockton Thunder.  So much fun.  I also made Jennah a bad ass Princess Leia costume, because sewing your own damn costumes is a lost art and also, BECAUSE I CAN.  For Halloween, which is the picture on the right, Ayman was Jack Sparrow, and Jennah was a Pirate Wench.  My mom totally scored a great pirate costume with hat; it was a little small so some modification was in order.  Also, I made him a wig bandanna combo from a cheapie mask my mom had in her costume trunk.  We topped it of with a pirate beard and make up and BOOYAH, Mommy rulez!  Jennah and I had a great time thrift store shopping for her costume bits.  That girl can shop.

We also had a year of fake moustaches and broken right arms.  

So, Ayman broke his arm in August.  He fell off his bike because he hit a curb, because of his desire to be FIRST at all times.  I hope he took something away from that experience.  Jennah broke her arm in early January, (I know it is in 2014, but I am lumping it with 2013 for posterity)  Let me tell you how, dear reader, since this is for you too.  Ayman and Jennah call our bedroom "The Training Room".  It has a big Cal King bed, and the kids wrestle with each other.  Roughly.  They have just always done it.  This time, big brother accidentally stepped on Sissy's arm.  You know how when your kids cry, you can tell from the tone if something is really wrong?  Well, I heard Jennah make a noise of pain. Then she said, "I'm not gonna cry, I'm not gonna cry.... " It was at that point I threw my laptop on the floor and hauled ass back into the bedroom to see why she wouldn't be crying.  Due to a policy I have called "If One of You Ends Up Crying You're Both in Trouble" they didn't want to tell me a thing.  I waived my normal policy on that night.  Ayman was torn up- he was sad he hurt his sister, and terrified he would be in trouble.  Jennah was cradling her arm and doing what can be best described as Lamaze breathing.  I took her to the urgent care, it was xrayed and splinted, and we went out to the county for a cast the next day.  What a difference, let me tell ya.  Ayman was damn stoic about his broken arm.  He wept silently.  Jennah, not so much.  Ayman had tylenol with codeine the night of the break.  Jennah was asking for pain meds three days later.  She really is her mother's daughter, just as Ayman is his father's son.  Genetics are fun, huh?

The above picture is just so cute.  I picked the kids up from school in December and decided to take them to Panera for some hot chocolate, a cookie and some conversation.  They're adorable.  I am not biased at all.  

     So that is about as many pics as I will post, Ayman turned 10 last year and is in the fourth grade.  His teacher is Ms. Wendt.  He loves to read.  In about August, he started reading the Harry Potter books.  By the end of the year he was pretty much done with them.  Now he is reading The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.  We went to his teacher conference and he has read, get this, 600k words since the beginning of the school year.  He loves to read so very much.  It warms the cockles of my cold, dark heart. Jennah turned 8 last March.  She is in the second grade, and her teacher is the same second grade teacher Ayman had: Mrs. Ellis.  Jennah's reading is coming along wonderfully. Jennah's big thing is art.  She loves drawing pictures, making jewelry and just about anything that exercises her creativity.  She is a thoughtful and sweet young lady.  I am so proud of the both of them.

     On a personal non-child related note, since September I have lost 48 pounds.  Amr and I joined the gym and I have been going regularly. Between my mom, dad, brother and I we have lost about 250 lbs.  My brother has lost a whopping 100lbs!  It's really awesome. Amr and I celebrated our 13 year anniversary at the end of July.  Time does fly!

Also, if you are just joining us, I do not try to pretend that I am a professional writer.  So please, if you feel the need to grammar/punctuation nazi me, don't. I just don't care.
   
There is the regurge.  Hope you enjoyed it.  I would promise to do better, but I am sure that I won't.

OK! I am not a good blogger anymore.

I am going to keep this blog, But, i have become quite crappy at posting on it.

i will post a regurge soon, with pictures, I promise.

Hope all is well out there in the blogspere! Don't give up on me i will take care of business with this, i swear.

Yeah, Yeah.

Okay, i am horrible at blogging now. So sue me. Lets just hit the highlights shall we?
I am about to start my fourth clinical rotation at a hospital not far away. i worked there last time, and loved it. I finish school on December 16th, no telling when the graduation ceremony is.

This past weekend, Amr and the kids returned from their five week trip to Egypt. my children now speak arabic. They speak it to Daddy, they speak it to each other, and sometimes to me. Note to self: Learn Arabic so my children cant talk smack about me in front of my face. I was very happy to see everyone and am glad they returned home safely. That being said, for the last five weeks i did nothing but:
sleep
sleep some more.
Sleep with the "sleep" function on my tv (in other words fall asleep with the tv on can only do that when i am alone- Amr cant sleep with the tv on.)
watch tv shows with questionable sexual content (Mad Men, True Blood)
Read 8 books, (Southern Vampire series, Charlaine Harris, did i mention I am hooked on Sookie Stackhouse?)
and go to school (I got a B in Neonatal class, and my NRP)

My mother decorated my house; for one entire week, I ate only hotdogs. (too lazy to go get food, too lazy to cook food.) In fact, i was so lazy, i lost 3 pounds because i just didnt want to make or get anything to eat. I would drink a lot of water and go to sleep. So i got that going for me, which is nice.

So now everyone is home, and we are doing stuff, Ayman spiked a temp tonight, of 103.5. Greeeeeeaaaaaaaaat. I hate that crap.. we will go to the doctor tomorrow. Jennahs allergies are acting up, and the weather is crap right now. I need to go to get my ID for clinical, the kids have dentists appointments, and i brainfarted jury duty last week, so I have to report on jan 5th instead. Woo Hoo. Someday my life will be less frantic where my family is concerned, but i don't really expect that anytime soon. I guess it all goes with the territory.

Oh hey btw- Don't forget to vote tomorrow.

UPDATE: Ayman has tonsilitis again, and the doctor tested him for....wait for it....Malaria.
super sweet

Updated update (03/26/10) it wasn't malaria.

Then of course comes Friday....

We had a dinner at Tant Nahed's house. Once again, the food was delicious, but unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the spread. We had a really nice visit. Tant Nahed lives in Giza, right off of the same street that the pyramids are on. So, reasonable people, (and I know you all are reasonable people, for the most part,) would think that I would get some pyramid pictures. You'd be wrong. It was getting pretty dark on our way, we were following Maged, and pictures don't turn out well from a moving auto, observe: That is a picture of Mohammed Alis Mosque, or "The Citadel" as all the street signs call it, taken from the car.

This is a pretty awesome picture of my son, who is refusing almost any picture these days. He is wearing about 3 different sets of prayer beads around his neck in this picture. He does a decent re-enactment of his sisters crying, and I will get to work on getting that on video. Like I said, he is camera resistant at this time.











Another one who is camera resistant is Kooki. It must be the age. However, Nada, Kooki's older sister got the two of them to sit together for a few pictures, which I find truly amazing. Thank you Nada, much props.

Ok, here we go.

Well, my crappy assed job approved my leave of absence for the middle of February to the middle of March. Do you all know what that means? Egypt. We are making the very long, but oh so worth it, trip to Egypt. I can't wait to see everyone again. Just thought i would let you all in on that.
I will be posting holiday pictures soon, so hang tight, my peeps.

ho, ho ho, is almost here here here

Well, the holiday season is here again, and i have been too busy to blog. Sorry folks, I will be really bad about blogging until the end of the year. But here is a nice picture of Jennah for now.

Ramadan Mubarek.

It is that time of year again. Ramadan. I can't believe it. It came so fast. To all you Muslim folks out there-Kol sena winta taybeen.
Tonight I made dinner for the mosque that Amr goes to. It is a small mosque so it turns out I am only feeding like 20 people. Beef, peas, carrots, rice, salad, hummos, pita bread pasta salad (Thanks Gene!) cupcakes, and chocolate cake. Don't think I am not going to get some for myself before it goes out the door. Amr and Ayman will be enjoying it at the mosque, I will eat it here (it is a student mosque, and mens only) and Jennah will be enjoying it thru the boob. Subhan allah.
I went to check out a different school yesterday. I was thinking this last weekend, that there was no way I could go to the school in Sacramento and still have anykind of life. School itself is like, 9 hours, there is three hours commute time as well. That is too long to have my kids being taken care of by someone else, and it leaves me no time to sleep or study, so I will be attending the longer, crappier school, that has better hours (25 minutes away, and 4 hours a day.) now I just have to come up with the money for said school. Apparently you have to live in a cardboard box to get financial aid. I have to come up with 4K myself. So I have been applying for scholarships and loans online. Totally fun. NOT. At least I have some time though-- the school starts in January, but I think I am going to end up going by myself, when before I was planning on going with friends. I don't know if it is going to work for them.
hmmmmm lets see, what else to say? I mean I know I haven't been blogging at all lately, I have been a tad bit busy. Hopefully I will have everything squared away and under control by mid October. What a relief that will be, lemme tell ya.

Tired and lazy makes for bad blogging.

I really haven't wanted to do blog lately. You can totally tell this by lack of posting. I have been doing a lot though. I got braces three weeks ago. And damn. They hurt. I have also been applying for respiratory school. The school is 19 months long. I had to go and look at the school first ( it is an hour away ) and then the next week my friend Nelsy and Sheryl and I went to do the placement testing for it. I did good on the tests so I can enroll in the program. Now I only have to put the rest of my packet together with my resume, and a handwritten essay, along with a letter of reference from a respiratory therapist (which dude, will be so hard. My dad and brothers are RTs and I work with a few of them in the hospital....) anyway. All this with work and two kids. Sometimes I don't really know what to do with myself. It starts at the end of November. It is going to be hard, but it will be worth it. The pay is so much better and I can totally do it. My job right now is going bye bye. The hospital decided to put the phlebotomists, under the supervision of the nursing department. They have to change our job description, and we have reapply for our jobs. I don't really want the new job though. It will be more work for a job that I didn't sign up for in the first place. I am going to see if I can collect unemployment if they eliminate my job and change it, why not? I bet I wouldn't be able to though. But if I could that would be a dream. And, ideal for a school schedule. Eh. Whatever. I am just tired. Friday night there was like 4 codes in the hospital, two of them in the er. The Dr working was a total tool and I was running my ass off all night. He almost intubated a 95 year old man with a DNR. The dude had some last wishes. He was lucky his daughter was there to make sure they were observed or that doc would have intubated him for sure. Jerk.
On a happier note, I got front row seats for Kathy Griffin. It is on November 29th.
I am going with my mom and sis in law. And you know what is cool? I saw her at that time last year too. Something to look forward too. Well I am gonna go now. I have heartburn and I am pooped out.

I meant to do that.

Ok, I realize I have not written a monthy update on Ayman in like, MONTHS. Forgive me, between being pregnant, having a newborn, breastfeeding and going back to work, I seem to have forgotten. Let's say he is doing great. He has started really trying to talk, and can say "triangle" and identify the #2. He fetches diapers for his sister and gives her her pacifier when she spits it out. He loves Blues Clues, Wonderpets, and Dora the Explorer, and I love him.
Time to go cuddle the larvae, I will post again soon.

No, I Didn't Croak....

I am here and alive. Getting the hang of the two child thing. Jennah is a good baby, but then again she is still in that "larval" stage, where she is eating ,sleeping or pooping. I am not as sleep deprived as I thought I would be, but then again, I haven't gone back to work yet. That happens on the 29th of April. Crap. I am over the hump so to speak with the breastfeeding, and looking forward to the next growth spurt she will have (incidentally, that should be occurring right around the time I go back to work.)
The first week of April Ayman got Rotovirus, and spent a couple of days in the pediatric ward at the hospital I work at. It really sucked, folks. He started out spiking a temp, then the next night, it was vomiting and a fever, and in the day, he couldn't keep anything down, so off to the hospital he went. He was traumatized, but Amr was a helluva Dad, and stayed there with him the whole time. I couldn't be there and it totally upset me, but it was soooo contagious, and who wants a newborn with rotovirus? I am just irritated about it because I know that Ayman had to have gotten this from the Mall playground. 75% of his childhood illnesses to date have come from that petri dish. I am sure that the environmental services staff is super conscientious about cleaning the equipment. Needless to say we got past that. It sucked though. Ok, I thought I would have more time for this, but the princess beckons. I must do her bidding, now that the milk machine is revved up.

I look like crap.

New photos

Here are the lastest pictures of my sweetie babies. Prepare for diabetic coma. Sorry for the brevity. I am sleep deprived.

Who is this guy?


I think i like this chick...


I don't really know what to say about this one.