The pain of Divorce

Remember seesaws from when you were a kid.....well I have probably not been on one in 15 years or more....that is until the word DIVORCE entered in to my world. I am living an emotional seesaw where there are days of sunshine and days of total despair.

For those who do not know, and many of you probably do not, Joey and I are getting divorced. Everything should actually be finalized by the end of the year. I will not lay out the details and place blame on either party, but I will say that this is the hardest thing I have ever been through in my life. I hurt for myself, for the memories, but mostly for my precious children. I feel like I am failing them in a critical way. I am being forced to make a decision that my children will have to live with for the rest of their lives.

As far as the future goes.....well it is certainly uncertain. I know the with prayer and time all wounds will heal and we will all move forward. I can only hope that my children are spared from the pain in the end.

On a brighter note, I got a new job. I will be starting as a Probation Officer with the Atlanta Southwest probation office on Wednesday. I am nervous about being a full-time working single mother but I know that God will provide a way when things seem so out of control for me.

Ethan starts seeing his new therapist this Monday and he will have a regular appt with her every Monday at 10am. Speech therapy will start after the first of the year. I would ask that you please continue to pray for him as he has such a long road still ahead.

If you could just lift my family up in your prayers. We are all hurting right now as I am sure you can imagine.

God Bless!

Still waiting....

I did forget about you blog family......I just do not have anything new to post right now. Ethan could not get in to therapy last week and we still not have the eval results back. As all you mothers out there know, we have to be the driving force behind things often just to get results.....so needless to say with a little "heck-raising" I got him scheduled for another session this Tuesday at 9:30am.

Stay posted and I will let you guys know how it turns out.

Praying for my baby til then.....

Our journey begins

For those of you who follow me on Facebook then this blog might at first be a little repetitive. A quick overview it this: Ethan has been diagnosed as being developmentally delayed and we have been referred to Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, and a Pediatic Specialist who we can not see until February.
We had our first Occupational Evaluation last week and today Ethan begins his first OT session. I have little to NO idea what to expect from today's session but I am anxious to see how he responds. We still do not have the eval results but they are going to go ahead and start the therapy because the doctor said he definitely qualifies for services.
I am eager to read this detailed evaluation report that we are supposed to be getting soon because I hope it enlightens us to just what we might possibly be facing. As a parent you want to think that everything is perfectly fine and you want to make excuses for anything out of the norm that you might notice with your children. That is what everyone wants to do....everyone but me! I want to know what I am looking at, I want to face it, I want to tackle it head on and do whatever it takes to defeat it and make things the best they can be for my sweet little boy.
So I will painstakenly detail this process for all my friends and family that care enough to read this, to pray through this with us, and lift Ethan up whenever we may cross your minds.

God Bless you all and God Bless Ethan!

seriously slacking

So who said keeping a blog was easy....

I looked at mine today and quickly realized that I have not blogged in almost 3 months which is really pitiful.

So to update:

Ella Grace is now almost 20 weeks old and still a VERY temperamental little thing. Her nicknames around my house are things such as Miss Thang, Miss Priss, Princess, Prissy Pot and Diva...so that might detail for you how her demeanor can sometimes be.

Ethan is doing very well. He just started a new Mommy's Morning Out program and so far he seems to be adjusting well. We are starting slowly this time and will eventually work back up to full time day care when we feel the time is right. For now we have a nanny, Michelle, who is great with the kids and charges us less than what a day care would. She is a God-send.

I have been substituting a lot and I am really hoping something pans out for full time next school year. I really REALLY need a full-time job....I need the money and the benefits and everything....

Joey's business is struggling but hanging in there....I just hope it does not get any worse or I might be forced to take a part time job in addition to the subbing just to make sure the bills get paid.

Anyway that is about it for us. The holiday season is upon us so things are going to be crazy hectic for the next few months.

Hope all is well with everyone!

The Kramers

Colic News

Today Ella Grace is 9 weeks. In colic world that translates to..."almost to the end of this craziness..."

She still does not eat properly for her age. She should be up to around 4oz every 4 hours and instead we are lucky sometimes if she will take 3oz every 4-5 hours. The doctor says that some babies do not eat as much as others but this still is very concerning to me. She was moved from Zantac to Prilosec this week because the doctor concluded that the Zantac was not successfully controlling the acid reflux and since the change she has choked and spit up less than before.

We are still unsure as to what the actual "cause" of all this madness may be. Finally at wits end I broke down and called the doctor the other day and practically demanded that they refer us to a GI Specialist so that she can be checked over to ensure that we are not overlooking something mroe serious. I hate the label of colic because I think it is thrown around too much whenever a baby is more irritable than the norm. However, sometimes there very well may be some larger problem that exists that is not being addressed. I just feel for my child and worry that she may be suffering more than I can even imagine. Therefore I was prompted to call and demand this referral and we are now going to see the GI doctor on the 20th of next month.

On the upside, she is having more periods of contentment during the day and is slightly easier to put to bed at night. She has been on the soy for about 7 days and thus far it is at least helping her to get some much needed rest.

I will continue to update as she grows and changes. Hopefully we will see some drastic improvement in her eating over the next few weeks. She is such a small little thing that I can not help but worry about her.

God Bless!

Surviving Colic

This is for all those parents out there that are currently living through the hell that my husband and I are living through.

I thought we had had our fill of this when we finally made it through the 12 weeks that Ethan suffered from colic. We must be cursed to have to suffer through it yet again.
Unfortunately Ella Grace's colic is much more severe than Ethan's was. I feel like that is a pretty good indication that we are not treating whatever the cause of the colic might be. For instance, with Ethan it was Acid Reflux and as soon as we figured this out he was put on Zantac and a special formula and he was suddenly a changed baby. For Ella Grace, we have been on the Zantac for 3 weeks and Levasin which is a digestive calming medication and we still have seen little results. She is 7 weeks old today and she is suffering from this so badly. I want to make it better not just for her sake but for mine and Joey's as well.

For anyone that has lived through colic then you must understand where we are coming from. It is so hard to listen to that constant screaming and crying. She is so needy and I can not even put her down for a second without her throwing a complete fit. This is not good for a new mother who's hormones are up and down and who is just flat out exhausted. I never get a break from her either. That is until the past two nights when my very sweet and compassionate husband has taken her to his mother's so and stayed there with her so that I can rest and rejuvenate. He gets to take a breather from her when he goes to work everyday but I am constantly here. I know it must sound pathetic but it is so much harder than anyone can imagine unless you have lived through it.

I pray that we find a solution for her very soon. I hate to think that my baby might be in pain and yet there is nothing I can seem to do to fix it.

On the bright side...most babies outgrow this by 16 weeks so we are almost half way there. I guess that is the light at the end of this very dark tunnel!

July 4th Vacation

Well it was a rough weekend...but at least we got away for a few days. We left out of here at 2:00 Georgia time and did not make it to the condo in Gulf Shores until 9:30. The trip is only supposed to take 5 hours and I guess it would only take that long if you do not have two kids under the age of 3. Anyway it was a long exhausting ride and then to top it all off Ethan apparently had gotten a stomach virus so he vomited all over himself at dinner and had to be changed out in parking lot of some small time restaurant because there were no changing tables in the whole place.

Unfortunately it did not get any better once we got there. Ethan was sick and mopey pretty much the entire time and then to make matters worse he passed the virus on to Ella Grace so we had two sick and vomiting children. Due to the way the kids were feeling we were not able to get very many pics at all and we did not even step foot on the sand one time due to all the chaos.

Fortunately everyone seems to be on the road to recovery and should be back too 100% within a few more days.

Hope everyone had a great 4th!


Sweet Ella Grace

One of the few pics I got of Ethan. As you can see he is in the tub which is where he spent a lot of time since he kept vomiting on himself :(

The family after a late swim on the night of the 4th.

Ella Grace in her adorable lady bug bathing suit. As you can see she was not very happy.

Joey in the truck on the drive down. He thought it would be hilarious to drive with the batman mask on to see how many people stared at us. One guy busted out laughing as he drove past once he saw how crazy Joey looked!

Kiddo pics

Here are some cute new pictures of the kids from the past week. Most of these are of Ella Grace because we love capturing her first thing in the morning when she is all fresh from sleep and making silly faces. We swear she smiles at us..although many like to say that at her age it is just gas. But we think she is smiling so we are sticking to that :)


Mommy's Precious Boy

See that is a precious little laugh!

A half smile

I love this one! Just what do you think she is thinking in this picture? Could be..."Oops I just messed my pants!"

One happy baby! She is already changing and growing so much!

The best smile we have caught yet :)

Already at the ER

Yep you read that right...it has only been 1 month since our beautiful daughter arrived and her brother has already put her in the ER.

Tonight we were all visiting my Mom for dinner. Ethan had gotten a new toy car and was busy playing with it on the sofa while Mom and I were trying hard to keep Ella Grace awake. We had her sitting in her boppy on the floor while we were making faces to keep her awake and the next thing I know, Ethan accidentally dropped his hard metal toy car directly over the side of the couch arm on to Ella Grace's head. Fortunately it did not hit the soft spot but did hit about an inch above her left ear just where her head curves. I called the doctor immediately who said that because of her age she needed to be seen at the ER asap.

The hospital staff was great with her. We had xrays done and it turns out everything is just fine. No fractures or any skull damage was present on the xrays and she was very alert and active which the doctor said is great since she just suffered a nasty bump on the head.

We are monitoring her closely for the evening but it appears as though everything is going to be ok thankfully!

It's a crazy life with two kids but I know this is just the first of probably many bumps and bruises. I am sure she will be paying her brother back for this one day!!!!!

Father's Day 2009

Here are some new pics of the kids from Fathers Day. We had a great day visiting with Joey's Dad and Grandad and just celebrating the wonderful Dads in our lives. Unfortunately my Dad and Step Father could not be with us to celebrate this year. I hope we can all be together next year.




This is the first time Ethan has ever touched his baby sister. He is being such a sweet boy by rubbing her tummy and trying to make her feel better!

I spiked Ethan's hair for the first time! He looks like such a BIG BOY with his hair like this!

Ella Grace at one of her peaceful moments. God Bless us until this horrible colic goes away....

Ethan giving a BIG cheesy smile for the camera. He is such a little clown!

What a great picture to capture on Father's Day!

Pics of my beautiful daughter!!!!!!

Hello world! My name is Ella Grace Kramer and as of today I am 3 weeks old. Sorry my mommy does not have any recent pics to upload yet but you guys can check these out from the day I was born, May 27th. Stay tuned because I am sure you will be seeing lots of pics of me in the upcoming months as I grow and change and become a Big Girl!

Ella Grace has arrived!!!!!

But I am sure you could figure that out already since I have not blogged in like 3 weeks or so. She arrived on Wednesday May 27th at 9:37am. 6 lbs 8.7 oz and 19 1/2 inches long.

Life has been crazy since getting home. Wow two kids are really a handful so we are steadily trying to adjust to that. Not to mention that our precious little angel has a touch of colic so you all can just imagine what my life is like right now.

Ethan has taken to her slowly. I think she gets on his nerves with all the racket she is constantly making. Fortunately he has come to be very independent in the last few weeks and we have seen no signs on jealousy thus far.

I would upload some pics but for some reason my computer is not working properly so I guess pics will have to wait unfortunately.

Hope all is well with everyone. Pray that Joey and I find some peace soon....oh and some sleep :)

Brittney

Ella Grace is a stubborn little thing already.......

So it was back to the doctor today....I was trying not to be "too" hopeful that things had changed. GOOD THING! Things are pretty much the same as they were two weeks ago except now I am at 3 instead of 2. She is definitely head down and her heartbeat sounds great but other than that it is still a waiting game. Only one small problem - I AM TIRED OF WAITING!!!!!!

I guess I should be thankful for the sleep and rest that I am able to get right now because I am know all to well that that is about to change, but I am anxious to see her little face and introduce her to her BIG BROTHER!

Other than everyone being on "Ella Grace Watch," things here are ho hum and normal as always. Business is good and keeps me and Joey busy and Ethan has adjusted so well to his new school. He is talking a lot more, singing all the time, and just becoming such a big boy. Once he gets over his initial shock and horror of having to compete for any attention, I know he will be an awesome big brother. He is so sweet and compassionate for a child his age and he has such a big heart. He will be my little helper I just know it.

Well I am off to rest my aching back and eat an M&M cookie because hey....I better enjoy it while I still have some time. 13 days and counting folks....

Mothers Day

Well we all had an awesome Mothers Day and I hope everyone else did also! I spent most of the day resting because I have been having really bad nausea all over again and have been feeling really drained all the time. Joey and I took both our Moms to a little Italian restaurant here in Newnan called Mama Lucia's for dinner and we all had such a great time. Ethan behaved like a little prince too thank goodness!!!!!

Went to the doctor today and did not get examined...what a waste of time. Basically it is just a wait and see game at this point. I feel like crap, I am nauseous a lot, I am the size of my house...yet there is NO END IN SIGHT :(

Apparently I will get examined next Monday if I make it til then. I am hoping that I dont!
Anyway enjoy some pics from our wonderful Mother's Day and I will update on the baby as things progress along.


Ethan was running and playing so hard outside the restaurant after dinner that his pants literally fell off. We all got a big kick out of it!!!!

Joey's sister, Melissa, was visiting from New York for the weekend. Here is a great pic of the two of them!

Since he would not pose with me for a good Mommy/Son picture I had to tickle him and settle for this shot.

Me and My Mom posing for a pic.

Ethan loves to eat the camera!!!!!

Before I stuffed myself in to oblivion ;)

Still waiting....

Well we are still anxiously awaiting the impending arrival of our little girl. In the meantime we have been staying busy trying to keep up with Joey's business stuff and trying to enjoy the last little bit of time we have with just Ethan.

Fortunately Joey has chosen to slow things down a little bit which is great because he is home more, has more time for me and for Ethan, and is no longer on the verge of having a heart attack from the stress. ALL GOOD THINGS!!!

Plus once Ella Grace gets here I know he is going to be wrapped around her little finger so it is good that he has found a way to cut back on all the crazy work hours.

Well we will continue to keep everyone posted on the baby progress....everyone around here is making bets on when she will make her arrival. So far a friend of ours has the 10th, Joey has the 11th, I have the 12th and my mom has her money on the 16th. Anyone else care to wager a guess?

In the meantime here are some cute pictures of Ethan from the other day. We were moving some furniture for my mom and he was playing the part of SUPERVISOR to a tee!

Enjoy!


MEET THE NEWEST MEMBER OF ELK PROPERTY PRESERVATION INC!!!!!!


OK NOW IF I ONLY KNEW WHAT THIS THING DOES THEN I WOULD BE SUCH A HARD LITTLE WORKER....

OK I AM OFF ON A TASK - NO TIME TO STOP FOR A PICTURE MOM!

MAYBE I WILL JUST STAND HERE AND SUPERVISE EVERYONE ELSE DOING ALL THE HARDWORK...

TIME FOR A BREAK! I NEED A COOKIE! I HAVE BEEN WORKING SUPER HARD!!!!!

34-1/2 weeks and counting....

Another doctor appointment today and things are looking good. My belly is measuring closer to schedule now and her heartbeat was just a racing. The doctor poked my belly hard for awhile and was able to determine that she is currently in the head down position so that is good news as long as she stays that way. I go back in two weeks to have my final bloodwork done and to be examined to check to see if I am dialating and to see how far down her head is already. I went walking tonight - just trying to encourage her to stay in position and get ready for the BIG DAY. Just less than 6 weeks left now til due date and we can not wait.

We will keep you all posted!!!!

Easter 2009

We had a great Easter celebrating with both our families. Check out some of these pictures we were able to capture of our little man!

The bubble machine from the Easter Bunny was a huge hit!

Big Easter morning smile :)

32 weeks and counting....

I went back to the doctor today to check on sweet little Ella Grace. Fortunately this time I did not get yelled out or made to feel like a blimp so I walked out of there head held high this time. Anyway needless to say things are progressing well with our little angel. Her heartbeat is perfect and she is swimming around like a little fish all hours of the day. She is one active baby!!!! My belly/uterus is measuring a week behind schedule but the doctor did not seem alarmed at all. He said that since Ethan was such a small baby she likely will be too and that is why it appears that I am a little behind the "norm" as far as measurements go. Bad thing about that is, she might be so small that she wont put a lot of pressure on my cervix which could mean she might stay in there and primp all the way to due date and I was kind of hoping to get a week or two reprieve for this whale like feeling :)

Other than baby news there is nothing much to write about around our house. Ethan and I are both finally feeling better and our new secretary/nanny started today and she seems like a good fit so far. She is going to be such a big help to me since things with Joey's business are really busy lately. We hope and pray that continues.

I really need to post some pics of my big boy on here for all to see. He is growing so fast and talking up a storm. Makes me sad to think how fast the time goes by. I really need to be better at capturing these moments but he hates to cooperate for the camera so I usually dont get that many good shots of him anyway.

Well my husband is calling down to me and telling me to wrap it up for the night. I try to blog when I can (which is usually really late at night...like now it's 10:30) because that is usually the first bit of time I get where I am not on mommy, wife, or secretarial duty for once.

Good Night everyone!!!!

Dying from Stomach Flu

The great thing about having toddlers is they bring home every little germy there is in this world and love all over their mommy and before you know it....poof....mommy is dying from the stomach flu.

Thats right, me and Ethan have been suffering - and I would like to emphasize SUFFERING from this wonderful stomach flu since last wednesday night. It never ceases to amaze me that parents allow their children to go to school and interact with other children even though their child might be showing signs of having some sort of bacteria or virus. GOT TO LOVE THOSE PARENTS!!!!

Fortunately it looks like things might be on the upswing for us. Ethan seems back to his old self today and we were both able to eat solid foods other than bananas and pancakes and noodles for the first time today at lunch. OMG who knew Zaxby's chicken could taste so good.

Other than that nothing exciting is going on around our house. We are about to hire a part time secretary/nanny to assist both Joey and I in running this business and keeping Ethan entertained while I try to work and keep things balanced.

Thank God though business is good and profitable. In this economy that is something to definitely be thankful for.

Well got to go now...the possible Nanny/Secretary is here to interview.

Happy blogging everyone :)

Savannah pics....trying yet again

Time to check out and get back home to our lil man! Boy what a great weekend!!!!!

Chocolate covered strawberries for breakfast? YES PLEASE!!!!!

The happy and very stuffed couple after a wonderful dinner

My sweet hubby scheduled us a romantic birthday carriage ride before we headed out to a fantastic dinner at Noble Fare in downtown Savannah!

Nothing like having warm decaf and sweet treats in the middle of the afternoon compliments of the B&B

This is what Joey did ALMOST the entire weekend.....WORK!!!!!!

Ok this is me chowing down on a hoecake and the best lemonade ever at "The Lady and Sons" restaurant!!!!!




Ok so everyone bear with me...looks like I may have gotten this thing down now. Anyway I hope you enjoy the pics and now that I have sort of figured this thing out expect more fun and crazy pics to come.

Good Night everyone :)