It has been nearly two weeks since Ellie started her Potty Chart. She receives a star each time she uses the toilet and has dry pants. A girl at church whom Ellie has taken a liking to made a chart to help her get over this wetting her pants thing.

Ellie is to get at least one star each day and at least three stars five days in one week. She has done fairly well. I believe it is working. In addition to receiving stars when she is dry, she receives negative consequences when she is wet. I try to make them very negative and severe. So far she has lost reading/rocky time at nap or bedtime, she's eaten by herself, she's lost her music at nap time, and she gets a ten minute timeout, while sitting in her wet pants. She also is in charge of cleaning herself up after she wets. I will not help her. Once we were out of plastic pants, so I made her put a diaper on herself. No pull-ups, they are too easy.

She isn't doing too bad.

"It is Well with my Soul" is one of my favorite hymns. It comforts me in times of sadness.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain:
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

I wrote this before I found out I wasn't pregnant, but I am posting it after.

Progesterone is something they have us IVF patients take. I don't like taking it. I won't go into why. But I thought I'd have a look-see as to what it does for me.

Progesterone-like steroid medication has a variety of effects on the immune system. This type of medication:

1. Blocks inflammation that can lead to scarring and damage to the placenta


2. Blocks the T cells and the B cells (lymphocytes) that can cause rejection of the placenta


3. Blocks the natural killer cells from releasing factors such as tumor necrosis factor (TNF) that can damage the placenta and the lining of the uterus


4. Prevents lymphocytes from wandering into the placenta, sticking there and doing damage


5. Causes an increase in hCG production by the placenta, and hCG and progesterone block the killing power of NK cells


6. Prevents prostaglandin production by the uterus and stops contractions from occurring


7. Causes the cervix to produce a cervical plug that is rich in antibodies, which prevent germs and viruses from gaining access to the baby and the placenta

Looks like I'll take the progesterone when they tell me. It's my little army in there getting the place ready.

Not happy about not being pregnant. I was very distraught yesterday and will be sad about it forever.

We are going to the cabin this afternoon. Besides home, it is my most favorite place to be. I wrote about the cabin in my very first post, click here and scroll to the bottom to read it. Wednesday, May 11th, 2005.

I an looking forward to being with my family at the cabin. Just the four of us. With no distractions.

I am not pregnant.

I am still enjoying catching a glimpse of my airbrush tattoo on my upper arm. I feel somehow empowered to have it. It is the Chinese symbol for Truth. I want two real tattoos. One where this one is now and one on the back of my neck. If I didn't have the ugliest spider veins on my legs, I'd want one on the side of my leg as well.

The one on my arm would be the Chinese symbol for Patience, reminding me to show patience in all I do, especially right now as a mother. The one on my neck would be the Greek letters for ixthus, ΙΧΘΥΣ, written inside the fish symbol. It identifies me as a Christian.

I - Iesus (Jesus)
X or CH - Christos (Christ)
TH - Theou (God)
U - Uios (Son)
S - Soter (Savior)

Well, that was a long explanation for me and my want of tattoos. And I didn't even get to the part about how my airbrush one got on my arm in the first place.

My dear friend P loves Sugarland. Although I like their music, I am not as big a fan as she is. And she just loves going to their concerts even though it is hazardous for her health. For some people, the crush of bodies jumping up and down, clapping furiously, singing at the top of their lungs, clamoring to see the stage is quite appealing. For me, it is not. But I accompanied her to the concert anyway. I went mostly for company with P and the before and after of the evening, than the actual concert itself, truth be told.

So this past Saturday found us at Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. Before we entered the arena, we stopped off at the boardwalk and Steel Pier, walking up and down a bit taking in the sites, and eating much boardwalk food (the pizza being the best.) Along the way the sun went down and the wind was quite chilling. Even though I had on my new hip jacket, I froze myself to near Popsicle status. P was loving it. Next we went back to the hotel and checked out the gambling scene. Since most bets were eye popping high, and slot machines are a waste of money, we held onto our cash and headed to the arena. And P's legs were needing a break from all the walking we did.

The opening act for Sugarland could have stayed home in my opinion. Her music was fine, but her concert appearance was lacking. And people stood in line to meet her. I was a bit flummoxed by this. When Sugarland came on the stage, people stood up and then never sat down. That also flummoxed me. Didn't they get tired of standing? Apparently my head was at the right height to get hit no less than four times by the fan behind me. He stood, while I sat. He also consumed a few too many adult beverages. I didn't know they even sold them at concerts. I also believe the couple next to him was being a bit inappropriate for a public location.

Since we didn't care for Ashton Shepherd, we took the opportunity to look at Sugarland t-shirts. We each got one, and P says she lives in it when she's not in her work attire. She now has a rainbow collection of 5 Sugarland t-shirts.

P only had to use her two inhalers twice each and two cough pills. We didn't even need to visit the local hospital, though we took note of its location. Our ride home was interrupted by much traffic backup on the rode out. I decided to ignore Maggie, the GPS directions thing, and go around. P thought we needed to stay put, but I didn't and we saved at least 20 minutes. We also stopped off at the rest area to get some TCBY, but the time was late and the only place open was Burger King. So we got more greasy food and headed home.

Did I mention that the entire outing was wrapped in Sugarland music? Car rides included. However, so that I could sing too, we were allowed to listen to Chris Rice instead of Sugarland after a while on the way home.

I love you, P!

We've been having bank problems. Stupid us decided that we would open a Wachovia checking account to access our money while we were on vacation without any fees. [We hate paying bank fees.] We thought it a splendid idea, since we would be across the country and our regular bank is local. Mistake number one was thinking we would automatically get a check card. We had to do some last minute calling to get it before we left. Mistake number two was figuring it would be fairly easy to transfer money online. Mistake number three was not realizing we would be charged a fee to transfer money from a Wachovia account to a non-Wachovia account.

We had planned for Gary's boss (who also banks at Wachovia, so it would be one trip) to deposit Gary's paycheck into our Wachovia account, then we would transfer it into our Univest account via the internet. That would happen two times. What actually happened was no money was ever transfer and major fees were incurred when our scheduled payments went through at Univest and there was no money in our account to cover it. While Wachovia wanted about four days to process our request to transfer, our account went farther in the red. We ended up borrowing several hundred dollars from my aunt (still in PA,) who deposited it into our Univest account. When we realized what was going on, we asked her to pick up Gary's second check and deposit it right into our Univest account, but his boss had already taken it to Wachovia.

We also took out all that one is allowed to at an ATM and gave it to my mom to deposit when they got home, since they flew and would be home sooner than us.

We should have just stayed with our local bank, used an ATM when we needed and paid about a hundredth of the fees that we actually paid.

But the story has a part two.

We somehow managed to keep the bad bank history going. A friend of ours gave us a significant portion of the fee for IVF. She gave us a check. We deposited it. Well, would you know it bounces. Her funds were on hold because she used her debit card to rent a card. [She won't ever to that again, by the way.] So, she went to her bank and made a fuss. She told us that it was OK to redeposit the check, at least that was what I thought she said. But yet again the check bounced. Foolishly I believed the check would clear and already put the money towards the credit card bill. So again our account went in the red. We were told she'd give us cash this time around but have yet to receive it. We borrowed more money from my parents, enough I thought to cover everything that would need to be covered. But no, the stupid oil company decided to finally cash the check we gave them nearly three weeks ago, and I missed seeing it hadn't cleared yet. Red again. There it stays until Friday when Gary gets paid.

We really need to pay better attention.

And we will never do business with Wachovia again.

This morning while Ellie was taking care of her potty business, she informed me that when she puts food in her belly, it comes out in her diaper. I made a mental note to remember what she said, because I thought that was worth writing down.

Today was the embryo transfer. I dropped Ellie at preschool, Josh at Pam's, and met Gary at home to drive down to Abington. When we arrived back home, I plopped myself on the couch and stayed there the rest of the day. I watched the last three episodes of season three of "Doctor Who," part of two movies (the children came home, so I had to switched what I was watching and just haven't finished either yet.) We had Taco Bell for dinner. Oh yes and there was an apple that Ellie gnawed on for a bit, then was passed to Josh to eat. And since he was saving us the touble of taking the core to the compost bin, he decided to eat that too. He left no waste.

Gary took care of everything, while I got a free pass to sit on the couch. I did a little more TV watching, while children were put to bed, then I fell asleep while listening to the Phillies and while Gary talked with his mother, woke up around 11:30, and then up to bed.

Phillies won, but the Mets did too. We have one embryo left.

P.S. I am typing be-bopping to my music being played on my "new" MP3 player. My sister acquired a free iPod with her laptop purchase, so I acquired her MP3 player. Now I need new head phones. These old ones make my ears hurt.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Have you ever felt that you are playing house? I have.

And Gary and I have a house? How could we have a daughter and a son? We are too young. It doesn't seem like I could possibly be responsible for such things. I'm fresh out of college. (Yeah right about the college thing.)

But there it is, my house. With my children running around in the yard playing.

Lately I've thought on the word mommy. Over time it metamorphoses. It starts as ma ma, sometimes ma ma ma ma ma ma. Then becomes mommy. The next change is to mom. Sometimes mo-om, said with an impatient tone.

And with each new form of my name, I see my children grow and become more an individual. And if I keep thinking about it, as they grow up they also take tiny little steps away from me.

Ellie started preschool this week. She's there three days a week. My mind wanders to next year, kindergarten. She'll be gone every day. Then first grade will be every day, all day. I'm losing my little girl, what horrors will find her out in the world. Then I mentally slap myself and say she's here at home right in front of you, knock it off.

But really, I do wonder about her future, how I can keep her safe. What parent doesn't? But all I can do is pray and leave her in the loving hands of God.

I did some more searching and found this. All you need to know about "following" on blogger.

Happy Following!

I discovered today, among many other things, that one could be a follower of a blog. I apparently have two followers. I didn't know what that meant so I took a look. I don't actually know exactly what it means to be a follower, but I am guessing that the two people are reading what I'm writing and have let me know it by using this follower tool. I knew the one - my sister-in-law. But the other was a mystery to me. I wondered who could be checking up on my blog? It was guy, and I was a bit concerned.

With a little trepidation, I decided to click on the link to his blog to see who is following my blog. I started reading to discover who this fellow was. Reading the blog didn't help, except to learn that he likes coffee.

So, I looked at the list of blogs he likes. I found that he likes my friend, Jocelyn's blog, so I followed that link. I found that I haven't been to hers in a while, because she has a new, cool picture on it I haven't seen yet and posts I haven't read yet. And I found a link to her husband's blog. And what do you think I found?

The guy isn't a stranger at all. It's Sean, her husband. I imagine you are laughing by now, Sean and Jocelyn.

Now I have another blog to read. And I have to check out this follower thing.

I forgot that I didn't share this little fellow with you all.

He was on the wall outside the bathrooms at the KOA Kampground in Lawerence, KS. I think he might not have liked me shoving my camera in his face.

Hey - maybe he stole our camper keys.

Update: The miles are in. Check August 23rd entry for # miles traveled. Well, the actual number is lost to us, because of reseting both of the tachometer instead of remember to use the one to measure cumulative miles and the other to measure between fill ups. So, after many tedious minutes of adding and using google maps to retrave our treads, I figured out the total miles between locations, and not accounting for the traveling we did at each location.

I am thirty five, and I still like it when my skirt billows as I come down the stairs or flares out when I twirl or just simply swooshes as I move.

I found a skirt (for an economical price of $3.00,) and it has the swoosh and flare and billow effect that I like. I bough two of its friends for a dollar each, and they also are fun to wear. Now if I could only find jeans for an economical dollar.

Ellie also enjoys a good skirt twirl. She gets a little more energized about twirling than me, or maybe it's just her young balance, but she ends up on her bottom. Or like Sunday with her head smacking the cabinets.