Catching up...

I've been neglecting my blog again. Sorry. Things are still pretty much the same.

Rachel's not crawling yet. She pushes herself backwards with her hands & can sometimes convince her fat little legs (I mean little as in their not very long, not that they don't have extreme girth) to lift her fat little butt (again little is that she's 7 months old, not that its not extremely well-padded) to take a small crawl-step forward. However, these crawl steps are few & far-between! She basically likes to pull her feet up and wave her hands around while she rocks back & forth on her belly like an odd-looking rocking horse! Mom says I used to do the same thing.

Simon is still not potty trained. He has had 5 total successes & I can't even begin to enumerate how many failures. We've tried bribing him (toys, food, etc), giving him targets, telling him we'll be happy if he does it right, sitting him on the potty for hours, having him run around naked, doling out gentle discipline for peeing (or #2) on the floor, etc. He has shown that he knows what to do, he just doesn't want to do it. He can also hold it for tremendously long because as soon as we put a diaper on him its fairly bursting w/ pee (&/or #2) within 5 minutes. At this point we're doing all of the above simultaneously in the hopes that its going to click one of these days. Last night after he had 2 'accidents' at mom's house I brought him home to sit on the potty for a while. He did what he was supposed to FINALLY!!! Even though he'd already made a puddle at mom's he filled the potty pretty well! He got a potty dance from me, a "good job" & "I'm proud of you" from Andrew & me, & two toy trucks (a monster/hot rod John Deere tractor & hot rod fire truck). I kept praising him right up until he went to bed.

I sold Febe on Saturday. She's now in her new home in Northern/central Indiana. The family that came out to buy her was really sweet. She's going to be the foundation for their Equine Ministry. They have a daughter of about 8 or 9 that has Down's Syndrome. One of their son's is about 15. The son is the one that's going to work with her primarily until she settles into their routine. However, they hope to use her for their daughter as well as other children in need. They're also going to breed her if/when they find a stallion. Its weird to be horseless again for the 2nd time in a year. However, I know she went to a good place & that it'll work out best for me/us to not have a horse to worry about right now. In the next year or 2 I hope to get to a place again where I can have a horse & actually use it.

Andrew has been feeling kind of bad lately. He went to the doctor & they can't find anything wrong with him. The doctor said he was probably just extraordinarily stressed from everything that's going on in our lives. Andrew's not one to relish being idle, but since he closed his business, he's not had a 'purpose' for his days. I'm not home enough to help him out of the doldrums. So he's struggling a bit. However, I think he feels a bit better knowing that there's nothing seriously wrong with him.

I'm still waiting for my meeting with my local ob/gyn. I've had several people put the bug in my ear that I should still have my hysterectomy done in Houston. Most people's opinion is based on the fact that I *could* have cancer & if that is the case, they want to be sure I have someone familiar with cancer doing the surgery in case there's something different that needs to be done. I'm still leaning towards having it done here though. The chances of me having ovarian cancer are fairly slim (less than 5% I think) due to my age. However, I think the chances of having a more complicated surgery (open abdominal surgery instead of laproscopic) is probably greater than the cancer risk. If I do have to have the open abdominal surgery I'd rather be close to home for my recovery. I don't relish a 900 mile journey home with a big incision in my belly. I'm confident that Dr. B can do a good job. I'm still open-minded though (or at least I'm trying to be). I'm waiting on a reply from Dr. K from Houston on her opinion. Plus I'm going to ask Dr. B what her opinion is on Wednesday. All I know is I want it done ASAP!!