Friday, February 13, 2009

I LOVE Normal

Just to update, I had the best most normal day today. The kids were just their everyday selves, really nothing to report, except that I love them VERY much. I had a couple inspirations on some things to do for some friends to cheer them up and that made the day extra special. I feel good that I made a couple people smile today.

My parents stayed home while the kids were asleep and I went for a quick little run (ok, maybe not quick, but just short), and even though it got pretty cold it felt GREAT! I love being able to get away for even just a little while and have some "alone time".

There was no dangerous medicine medling, no cracked walls (or heads!), and even no fits! Amazing!

And tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and I'm going to help watch about 24 of my friends' kids so they can spend some quality time with their spouses. Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm really excited!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Eye of the Storm

Well I got my quiet night. Little did I know it was just the eye of the storm. Carter pretty much slept through the night, only waking once right after I fell asleep. I was so grateful in the morning! Ahhhh. I think the Lord knew I needed a full nights rest for what I was about to face.

Today Carter:
1) smacked his head so hard on a wall that he cracked the wall!!
2) spilled gatorade all over his high-chair tray while I was in the shower, and then smacked the puddle repeatedly until everything within a mile radius was covered
3) had 2 out-of-control-in-a-way-I've-never-seen tantrums that lasted at least 30 minutes each
4) fell off a chair
5) climbed up on the stool, and opened the childrens motrin, spilling and possibly consuming the entire half-empty bottle (yes he has recently figured out the secret to "child proof caps")
6) fell asleep sitting up
7) found and got into my Dad's heart medication Nitroglycerin
8) had a very expensive two hour visit to the Emergency Room

It didn't appear that he had ingested either the nitro nor the Motrin, but when he fell asleep sitting up I called poison control, who told me to take him to the ER. If all of this had happened with the amount of sleep I had yesterday I think I would have had an mental breakdown. But I thank Heavenly Father that my child is still alive and screaming. I didn't even mind the fits so much. And when we were at the hospital he was such an angel he had all the nurses cooing at him. I was afraid he would totally freak out with all the doctors and nurses around him, which he has been prone to do since he had a minor surgery about 6 months ago, but he didn't seem to care at all. I contribute that to all the great, sweet doctors we've seen since we've been here. He just sat in my lap for pretty much the entire two hours and pretended he was a different baby.

So despite my horrible guilt for having all this happen on my watch I am one grateful mommy.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

A Day of Tears

Today the crying never stopped. Carter started feeling sick yesterday, and was fussy all day from morning until night. The over all misery progressed until he was only content being held. He laid in everyone's arms until he fell asleep before 7 PM. Once he was asleep he was pretty much quiet until I went in his room to check on him as I was going to bed at 11 PM. After that he decided it was much better to be with mom all night than be alone in his crib. Sleep was only captured in glimpses for the next 24 hours.

The day started anyway despite all my hopes and prayers. And the crying continued. He cried when he woke up. He cried because Daddy wasn't there. He cried when Daddy came home. He cried even harder when Daddy had to go to sleep. He cried when we had to take Jaden to preschool. He cried because he was hungry, but then he refused to eat. Finally, he started to nod off while I was holding him. I had one peaceful moment as I was rocking him in his room. But then I put him in his crib and he cried. I picked him up and tried to get him to sleep on me. He cried, so I put him back in his crib hoping he would fall asleep eventually, and dozed off while he cried. I woke up a few minutes later when he cried again. I got up and held him as he cried once again for Daddy.

Thankfully, my mother relieved me and held him while I picked Jaden up from school. I made lunch while Jaden pouted about who knows what. He was having his own "out of sorts day". We got through lunch and I laid Carter in his crib for his nap. I put ear plugs in knowing that I had to get some sleep or I was going to be a very mean mommy VERY soon. I fell asleep to him crying and woke to him crying. By that time I was feeling very depressed and nursing a migraine. Thankfully Jeff was up by then, and I escaped for a desperately needed trip to the grocery store (Carter got sick right after Jaden got better, so this has pretty much been the story of the week). I took an Excederin and left to the sound of you-know-what.

Once I was in the car I took a deep breath and looked around. The mountains looked beautiful, snow capped and majestic. I turned up the music on the radio and tried to sing along. I thought about how grateful I was for the "time off". I knew by the time I got back Jeff would probably be feeling how I did when I left, so I tried to cheer myself up. We can't all be cranky at the same time! So with my headache temporarily relieved, and little bit of shaky, caffine energy, I made it through the night. Its amazing what a little bit of fresh air will do for you during a very oppressive day. So now with my exhausted children in bed, my husband off to work, and my migraine returned in force, I take two Excerdin PM and pray for a quiet night.

Baby Scott

My sister, Juli, had her baby! He was born two months early, surprise! He came on February 9th at 4:03 PM, 4 lbs 3.4 oz, 17.5 inches. He is doing great, and even better every time they do a check-up. He will have to remain in the NICU at the St. Thomas Hospital for probably four weeks.

Everything came as a surprise to everyone. The pregnancy seemed to be doing fine, Juli was experiencing some cramping and what she perceived to be incontinence, but nothing that seemed off course. Then Monday, her cramping seemed to be intensifying, still she just thought it was Braxton Hicks contractions. She called her midwife who told her to check into the clinic just to be safe. Reluctantly she did, but not until she ran a few errands that had to be done that day. She didn't tell Will because she knew he was busy with work and didn't want to cause any unnecessary alarm. She figured she'd just tell him about it after she got home.

When she got to the clinic in St. John she was 4 centimeters dialated, and the contractions were progressing quickly. They tried to give her some medecine to slow it down but to no avail. The realized now that her water must have broke about a week earlier (it leaked slowly so she just thought she was peeing herself!) They shipped her over to St. Thomas and she had to work hard not to have the baby in the boat or ambulance! Once they allowed her to push, the delivery was over in 10 minutes. Will barely had time to wash his hands to be there for the birth. Congratulations Juli and Will!

Friday, February 6, 2009

"Put it on my Tab"

My good friend from BYU made a comment on her blog the other day that I must reiterate. She has four children, three of which have been very sick lately. After the umpteenth visit to the doctor toting three sick children, she wanted to tell the nurse behind the counter, like Dan in "Dan In Real Life" to the police officer writing him a ticket, "Put it on my tab." I laughed so hard when I read that. I mean, haven't we all been there? We had so many visits to the doctors over the holidays, for puenemonia, ear infections, pink eye, and a sinus infection, and those were just the visits that produced diagnoses.

Today, unfortunately I will say it again at 11am, "Put it on my tab." Jaden has had a fever since yesterday afternoon, and despite rotating tylenol and motrin every four hours, has not receded. He couldn't sleep all night (which of course meant, neither could Carter nor I). So off we go to the doctors again...

Ovens, Refrigerators, and Cell Phones



So I bought an oven. Not as cool as the one I really wanted, but still a great deal. We had to drive out to Denver to get it, but the nice lady who sold it to me took $150 less than what she was asking so it was definitely worth the trip! This appliance is the one I care the most about so I'm relieved that that purchase is done. Now all we need is an electric dryer, an over the range microwave, and I would love a stainless/black refrigerator.

I was so proud of myself yesterday, I figured out how to list an item for sale on Craigslist all by myself, with pictures even! (Which is REALLY easy, by the way, but I just always leave that stuff for Jeff to do just because he's better at it. Until yesterday, I'm ashamed to admit I had never even uploaded pictures off the camera to the computer before!!) I'm having trouble convincing Jeff that we need a stainless/black refrigerator to match our new kitchen, so I figured if we could sell our current fridge for a good price first, he wouldn't need as much convincing. So if anyone wants a great fridge we're selling ours for $800.

I was excited when I received an email asking if it was still available just a couple hours later, so I decided I'd better clean it out just in case someone wanted to come by to see it. I had my cell phone in my pocket so I wouldn't miss any calls, and I spent probably an hour making it spotless. Just as I was finishing up, something fell into the bowl of soapy water. What would it be, except my brand new phone? Yep, the only cool phone I've ever had, that I've only had for a couple weeks. Yeah, I broke it. Nice. It probably commited suicide because it had no more self-worth after the whole oven thing. I shouldn't have bad-mouthed it so much, cuz right now I sure wish it had stuck around longer. Sigh.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Baby Sitting Co-op

We had our first day of our newly formed Babysitting Co-op on Monday. I started it off since I chose to make myself available on Monday mornings. I had two kids from 9-12 am, we had a blast!





Then today, I swapped kids with the mom from yesterday, and she took mine for three hours this morning. I finally vacuumed the spilled baby powder from a week ago in the kid's room, cleaned up the dishes piled all over my kitchen, and drove around all morning collecting boxes for moving from various grocery store produce departments. All things that are not very much fun toting two kids. It was a nice break. What a great idea! :)

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