The Wheels on the bus go round and round

This school year 4 out 5 of my children are in public school. I have 2 in Elementary, 1 in Jr. High and 1 in High school. Although I did not cry when The Wild Man started Kindergarten this year, I did however not look forward to it. Each year I find school more and more annoying.

That's right, I said it. I said I find school annoying. I am pretty sure I was not up for parent of the year award anyways, so I might as well get this of my chest.

The amount of emails, notes, printouts, flyers, memos, smoke signals, morse code, text (yes TEXT) - AUTOMATED PHONE CALLS FROM THE DISTRICT, that I get with 4 kids in 3 different schools is enough to make me want to DRINK or possibly find a reputable source for marijuana.

I am going to go ahead and insert that I appreciate what our teachers do and totally think they should be paid more. Got that out of the way...

Also earlier in the school year, I totally forgot about the first parent teacher confernece for The Wild Man and The Diva. I missed it - Luckily Big Daddy was close and made it to both of them. I told him to tell them I was sick or something just to please not tell them that I missed it because I was at the AT&T store getting the new iphone. It was then I knew that this school year was going to kick my ass.

The amount of notes that I get sent home from Wild Man's teacher is insane. I am serious to say that when the child steps out of the straight line walking to the lunch room, I get a note about it. I once got a note from his music teacher that he was singing the songs in a SILLY VOICE. No shit people, A SILLY VOICE in music class while singing. A KINDERGARTEN class - a 6 year old boy. REALLY? I politley wrote back that I was sure he was just trying to channel Eminem or possibly Little Wayne because that is pretty much all we listen to. I did not get a response back and I have not received another note from her.

Wild Man has a binder that comes home every day and in that binder is chart that his teach er either puts a smiley face or a sad face depending on the days events. Needless to say, we see alot of sad faces. 95% of the time it is over the smallest thing. Alot of the times it is over not finishing his school work. Which I do talk to him about but good lord, he is in Kindergarten, didn't we just color and go to recess and wipe boogers on each other. We didn't have homework in kindergarten.
I got a call a couple weeks back about Wild Man not wanting to take some test they were giving to track his progress. basically he just did not want to test that day. He got whiny and irritated and so I get a phone call. The first question out of his teachers mouth was " I was wondering if maybe there something going on at home that is stressing him out?" Silence on both ends of the phone then I responded with No, I am thinking he just doesn't want to take the test.  Teacher: Well Mrs. Campbell I am not sure what to do about him.
Me: silence then How about you try again tomorrow. Teacher: Well we have tried 3 times today.
Me: and you are asking me why he is stressed?
There was a bit more conversation, it all ended well and we both agreed to test try again another day. I spoke with Wild Man that evening and he basically just was not in the mood. I told him that he has do his best and blah, blah, blah all that parenting crap you lay out for them. he made it through the testing and nothing more was said about it.

Let me tell you another gripe I have - the beginning of the year school supply list. I feel like we are stocking the damn cafeteria and cleaning closet rather than our kids desk. Clorox wipes?? Really, I at times do not buy those for my house because they are a bit overpriced. 6 boxes of Kleenexes? make sure you don't buy anything cute for your kids because when you take all those supplies in, they all get dumped into public bins and who knows if your kid is gonna get what you bought them. I am also pretty sure I went through my entire school career without needing post it notes. Just saying...

So far Junior High and High school are my favorite years. I am sure having great teenagers enables me to say that. Starting in about 7th grade I have found that the teachers really do not want to communicate with you and if they never have to, they like you that much more.

So judge if you want but school is totally bumming me out. Don't respond with "maybe you should homeschool". I have several friends who homeschool and I am have no idea how they do it. I would have gouged my own eyes out on the 2nd day.

Peace out

Boob, Jugs, Fun bags, Chesticles - Call them what you want...

So along with all the work by Dr. Obaid to my tummy area, I also opted to give my rack a fresh new look. Prior to the surgery I had 510cc saline implants (June 2004) and really liked them. That is until I was fitted with these bad boys:

I could not be happier with them. They are 550cc silicone implants -high profile shape. I love that I can get the fullness at the top that I wanted without having such a wide width implant at the bottom.

Up until last night I have not had one single complication. After my shower last night I did happen to notice that a small part of my incision under my right breast was a bit opened up. I contacted Tiffany at Dr. Obaid's office via email at 6am this morning and at 7 am she replied back to me that I needed to come in around 10 to have a look at it. I got there and they decided it should be stitched back up to prevent any further tearing and to make sure it healed with as little scarring as possible. So 2 shots of lidocaine in the boob and 10 stitches later, I was all fixed up. Some ointment a couple times a day and then stitches come out next Wednesday.

I love that they are so quick to respond to my concerns and always take care of me like I am the only patient they have.

I did start back to the gym on Wednesday morning (20 days post op) and I did 10 minutes of slow walking on the treadmill and 12 minutes pedaling on the stationery bike. I did it again this morning and feel pretty good.

I have not tried to take any measurements of my waist or hips to compare with prior to surgery. I am still a bit to swollen to see any results in the measurement. I have however hopped on the scale. So far I am weighing 10lbs less than pre-op. Now I am sure that is a bit of what was removed from my body but also I bet some is lost muscle mass. That is not great but I am on the road to pumping iron soon, so I am not too bummed about it.

Check back next week for an update and more pics of the progress.

Piece by Piece

So I am for sure ALIVE. I had really thought I was going to blog about this recovery every couple days, but really nothing that exciting has happened. The recovery has went as smoothly as it could go. My healing is near perfection and really just boring. I do however have a 2 week pic of the tummy tuck incision:

The lines that are running up and down are the indention lines from the foam inserts that go under my compression binder.

Swelling has not been bad at all - mainly I get swelling at the love handle or flank area, where the liposuction was done. Usually by the late afternoon I start to swell a bit. Over all not near as bad as I had read about or been told about.

The little bit of actual pain I have had was controlled with pain meds. I did catch a bit of a cough and that ranked right up there with natural childbirth on the pain meter. WOWZA! not good.

I have had alot of women ask me about how I am handling my house and kids and work and recovery. Well the truth is I am not handling anything but my recovery and a little bit of work. The house and kids are being handled by a great friend, My mom and of course Big Daddy. That is probably why I have recovered so well. The best advice I could give you moms who want to do this is to make sure you have help with everything for a good 3 weeks. I still can not lift my 1 year old and he is 30 pounds.
I am at day 18 post op and just within the last few days was able to get in and out of the seated position by myself. Be very detailed in your plan to have help during your recovery. It is vital to a glitch free recovery and you will be glad that you did.

Another question I have received is "When will you be posting pics of how your boobs are healing?"
I will not be posting pics of this progress. I am not comfortable sharing pics of my boobies and I am pretty sure Big Daddy would flip his lid. I will however share clothed pics soon.

I am super pleased with how my boobies are recovering. The crazy thing is that I have had not one bit of discomfort in the boob area. Not even a little. The incisions are painless and are healing really well and I love the shape and feel of my new implants. I went with High Profile silicone this time around and could not be happier.

I will start back with light cardio in 3 days. I an definitely ready to get moving again, although I know it will be a long road back to my pre op fitness level.

Look for some new progression pics around 3 to 4 weeks.

Thank you for following me on this journey :)

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

This is what day 4 looks like...

At first glance all you see is a wicked incision that spans from one hip to the other and a belly button that looks like it belongs on Frankenstein.

Once the swelling eases and the incisions heal there will be a smooth, stretch mark free, flat belly.

The most amazing transformation is the one that you can not see. The abdominal muscles that had been used and abused with 5 pregnancies, have been sewn back together. Creating a blank canvas, that I can work my magic on using every core exercise I can think of.

I will share more progress pics as they are taken. I will also share more about my recovery.

Right now I must go rest and recover.

I brought my sexy back -Its just covered in compression garments

AS most of you know, I had a Mommy Makeover on February 3rd.

What is a "Mommy Makeover"

Well for me, it was a tummy tuck, flank lipo, my seperated abs were sewn back together, a full anchor breast lift with implant exchange. I had saline and now I have silicone. I am totally in love with them.

I have not seen all of my belly, but what I have seen is so flat you could bounce a quarter off it.

The first 24 hours after surgery was pretty painful. the main complaint I have is the muscle repair. That area is the most painful. Muscle relaxers help alot with that.

I will leave you guys with a few pics...




Morphine pain pump - I could push it every 11 minutes



It would appear that the morphine is working




This is what Big Daddy and Tasha celebrated with.





Oh yes, the morphine has kicked in




BOOBS!!!





Compression garment and 2 drains. Lovely.