Evan's story

We were a young couple eagerly expecting our first child. At the time, every thing seemed to be falling into place with our lives. My husband was completing specialized training for the military, we were pregnant and we would be assigned to an area when he graduated where we could start thinking about buying a home. There was no hint of what was around the corner.

The first surprise was that Evan was in a breech position and estimated to weigh over 11 pounds. My obstetrician discussed this with us and we decided that trying to turn the baby would be fruitless because of his size. A cesarean section was scheduled. At that point I was just glad that the end was in sight. I was so tired of barely being able to move and eager to meet my baby.

Everything with the birth went well. Evan weighed a whopping 10 pounds 6 ounces and passed his Apagar scores with flying colors. I was thrilled to be holding my perfect baby and was eager to start nursing him. The nurse was helping me latch him on my breast for the first time when she noticed that he turned a bit dusky for a brief period of time. Assuring me that he looked fine and was only doing this just in case she went and got the pulse oximeter to test how well oxygenated his blood was.

The numbers were lower than expected so she took my precious baby from my arms to run more tests on him and put him on supplemental oxygen. I was so tired and still drugged up that I drifted in and out of sleep praying the whole time that nothing would be wrong with my baby. I kept hearing him cry while they poked and prodded him.

The pediatrician on call decided that he needed to be moved from the small community hospital that he was born at to a larger one with a NICU. I asked to go along with him but since I could still not feel my feet, because of the spinal block, I was told that I would have to stay where I was for now. Devastated I was allowed to see him one more time through the incubator that the EMS people had brought to transport him to the other hospital.

The doctors from the other hospital assured us that he merely had pulmonary hypertension which caused his pulmonary arteries to shrink a bit with the stress of adjusting to life outside the womb. All he would need was extra oxygen and time.

Five days after his birth I went to visit Evan with my mother-in-law. He has been placed on bipap to help open up his lungs and he seemed to be doing better. An echocardiogram was scheduled for that day because one of the doctors thought he heard a murmur in Evan's heart. I decided to stay and watch the test.

It took awhile to get all the equipment set up as it was going to be a video consult with a pediatric cardiologist in a city about two hours away. I remember sitting there as the test began confident that this was a mere formality. Then the technician that was performing the test started freaking out. She could not find all the normal things that she was looking for. I could not at the time understand what she was looking for but I picked up right away on her worry. I started praying again that my precious baby would be fine.

He was not fine. They discovered a very complex heart defect and would have to transfer him to another hospital with the expert pediatric cardiology team that he would need to address his complex health problem. The doctors could not even apprise me of the extent of his defect since they were not experts in the heart and there was static on the line so the cardiologist did not get a complete picture either.

My world was completely turned upside down that hour. I went from having a baby that needed a little extra oxygen to one that was gravely ill. Before we would be able to take our firstborn home we would have to endure several surgeries including the implantation of a pacemaker, six weeks of hospital time, eating difficulties and the destruction of all our hopes and dreams.

Getting him home was only part of the battle. He developed bad reflux while in the hospital so nutrition to get him to grow before he could get to the next stage of his operation was a huge challenge. I also had to come to terms with what it meant to be the parent of a child with a heart defect. I had to endure the pitying look in people's eyes when I told them about Evan's diagnosis.
Surprisingly he did not turn out to be a sickly infant, too weak to even lift his head. He hit all of the important milestones at all the right times. Slowly life achieved a new normal.

About that time it was decided that he was ready for his next surgery. By this time I had done more research and connected with other parents through the internet. I felt more in control with the situation. I had been there before.
Evan did well with his surgery and was out of the hospital in a week. I was thrilled and happy that we would be able to go and spend Thanksgiving with family. I thought we were home free as he would probably not be needing his third and final surgery until he was three or four years of age. I had so much to be thankful for.

The evening of the day after Thanksgiving, Evan started crying
inconsolably. I was frustrated with him for not responding to my attempts so calm him and eventually I ended up putting him down for the night thinking that he was just over tired from all the excitement of the day. He woke up early that morning and when I went to get him I could tell immediately that something was wrong. One side of his body was limp and useless.

A CT scan would show that the middle third of his right hemisphere, the part of the brain devoted to voluntary muscle control was affected. Again our world was turned upside down. This time we were very lucky as if that blood clot had happened in any other part of the brain his entire personality and ability to learn could have been affected. He could have easily died that night.

Again life has returned to a new sort of normal. Evan finally started walking a year after the stroke. There is a trace of a limp in his walk and he refuses to use his left hand instead preferring to make other adaptations. He is on blood thinners to prevent another stroke so when he trips and falls he bruises easier than most kids. The casual observer would not realize that there is anything amiss with him.

While life is "normal" right now I know that it can change in a blink of an eye. Evan is facing another major surgery this fall so of course I am hopeful that maybe this surgery will go smoothly with no complications. We shall see what life holds in store for our special little man. All I know is that I treasure moment that we are blessed to have him here with us.

October 10, 2006

I am adding more to Evan's story since he has been through the third of the three stage surgery. The surgery went very well with no major complications. He was only in the hospital for a week. During that week right before he went home he was placed on a 24 hour Holter monitor. That test showed that Evan's pacemaker was not working correctly due to inflammation from his surgery. Evan has an underlying rhythm, so it was not like he was in immediate danger but it was decided to admit him after several pacemaker interrogations showed that there was minimal improvement in how the electrodes were working. After being given some steroids the electrodes started working better but still not perfect. Right now we are at the stage where he will have to have his pacemaker replaced in the very near future.

Another update:

Evan had his pacemaker replaced with no problems at all. Things have been very quiet and great for us.

My Favorite Place

J's Mommy did an interesting post about her favorite place and it inspired me to show you my favorite place. What is my favorite place? My bed, because that is where I sleep.

I love sleep and do not get nearly enough of it. I have been up since 6 a.m. this morning. Harry decided to get the whole family up bright and early. He along with his brother have just been put down for naps so I will make this post short so I can spend time in my favorite place.

Which side of the bed do you think is my husband's and which do you think is mine?

This is where the sleep disturber resides. The second he gets close enough to his brother's sleep pattern (or when we get sick of him being in our room) he will be sharing a room with Evan.

Lame

The city is just today taking down the Christmas (oh sorry, Holiday) lights that they put up way back in December. I seriously can't believe that it took them this long to even do it.

Pictures of Harry

Due to a special request from Zephra I am doing a post of pictures of Harry. She really twisted my arm super hard to get me to do this.

This is a picture of my first bath in the big bath. Previously mommy had been putting my in the infant tub but now I am waay too big for it.

As you can see I love being able to stretch my legs out and kick in the water.

Time to dry off, we don't want to get all pruney.

Big fun on my tummy. Silly mommy did not think ahead and put a waterproof pad under me. She had to wash the bedspread after this photo shoot.

Checkin out Mr Potato Head. It is a mutant potato thanks to Evan.

Watching my big brother play with his toys. I can't wait until I can crawl over and join him.

A Trip to the pediatrician

We had a ton of check up fun yesterday. Evan went in for his two year check up and his synagis shot for the month. Because of his heart defect he has to get these darn things monthly during the cold and flu season until he turns three. Harry had his four month check up and booster shots so I had two kids that got shots. Fun huh?

Evan has lost a bit of weight because we have been messing with his tube feedings. We have cut back on the amount of pedisure he gets in the hopes that he will eat more orally to compensate for the fewer calories he is getting by the tube. Harry shot up three inches but did not gain a ton of weight.

The fun came when the shots came out. Evan was soo dramatic about it. He was wailing and freaking out until he saw that Harry was getting a shot and then he quickly calmed down. Harry hardly made a peep for any of his shots, he is such a good boy. Evan on the other hand freaked out again when I got him up on my lap. After he was crying for the longest time and I know it was for effect because once I got him dressed and we were ready to go he quickly quieted down.

The Doctor did do his usual warning to me about the possibility of hernia in Harry. My boys are born with extra fluid around their lower manly bits. There is a medical term for it but I don't know how to spell it even remotely correct. All it means is that the hole in the abdomen where the testicles descend from don't close up very well and fluid accumulates but later it goes away usually by the time the kids are one. Sometimes bits of the intestine will poke through that hole and cause issues.

He had me going to the city for a surgical consult with Evan but I will not be fooled twice because the surgeon told me what to really look for and it was not what the doctor was worrying about. He was looking at the giant fat pad that Harry has down there because he is a chubbly little guy. You would think the doctor would know all this but hey he lets me do my own thing and has given me good advice when I ask for it otherwise, so I take this with a grain of salt. I can't really be all that choosy since we live out in the sticks and not many docs take our insurance. My kids are so healthy that we hardly have to see him for anything other than check ups. I get all my real medical advice from the cardiologist's nurse practicioner because she is more versed in Evan's heart defect.

My Son The Pusher

I discovered an ugly side to Evan today. At play group while I was passing out graham crackers to everyone Evan reached out and pushed the other little girl down. It was so causal and I think that he thought it was funny that she fell so he pushes her again. I just about died right there.

It was one of those nightmare situations and I even did something that I will try not to ever do again. I made an empty threat and told him that we would have to go home if he did that again. Of course later on he did it again so I had to move him away from the other girl and I told him in my sternest voice that we do not push others. I think he got it because he acted later on like he was going to push again but I saw it and I just said his name and he stopped.

This whole socializing kids into decent human beings is getting to be much harder than I had imagined. I guess Evan being such an obedient child made me think that I was on easy street.

Annoyances

I love my husband, I really do.

BUT Today he was driving me up the freaking wall. I work with the youth in my church and they were having a talent night tonight so of course I wanted to attend. I did not have a specific assignment at the activity since I have been out of commission for a while with Evan's cath and other crap that has been going on. I just wanted to get out of the damn house already. It has been over a month since I spent an evening out of the house minus the kids.

My husband hates it when I leave him alone with Harry. Why? Harry cries hysterically whenever my husband picks him up. This child will not even eat for anyone but me. If I have to be away Harry will grudgingly eat as little as he can get away with making known his displeasure the whole time.

The sad thing is that I really have been enabling this behavior because it is just easier to do it myself. I have been letting my husband guilt me into staying at home or at the very least taking the baby with me. This is just so frustrating because I want Harry to like his father. I also thought that the biggest advantage to bottle feeding would be the ability to have anyone feed him. This theory was completely shot to hell with my stubborn little man. I know that eventually he will grow out of this but right now it is making life very difficult.

After all the drama it ended up that Harry slept the entire time that I was gone. I am betting that the little bugger is going to be up at the crack of dawn now.

Decision made

I guess I was just making a huge deal because in the end the decision was a lot easier that I had anticipated. He will be having a therapeutic heart cath at the end of April. Then in the fall will be his fontan. This is a huge operation because it fundamentally changes his circulation.

The cath will not be a very big deal. Just an overnight stay in the hospital and then we should be able to go home. I just wish that the cardiologist had also presented this as an option to me in the first place when there was talk of having to do something last fall. I have a hard time believing that she did not know that it could be done that way since she is a very knowledgeable doctor. If she had not known right off that fall, there was plenty of time for research later on. I am certainly going to mention this to her when we see her next.

Right now I kind of like maybe people are going to start thinking that I am making such a big deal over the surgery just for attention. I have told quite a few people about the surgery that is not happening because I was trying to keep my schedule clear of major events so that I could drop everything when I needed to. Now... I don't have to. I am not going to tell anyone else in real life about the one coming up this fall until I have a firm date. It was soo annoying having people ask me for a surgery date when I had none.

A Interesting Email Part 2

Well I am not as popular as I thought I was. Apparently the person that sent me that invite to her daughter's birthday party had intended it for another person with the same name as me. It was kind of nice to think that there was someone out there that just HAD to have me as a friend but hey, I really should not have such an inflated ego in the first place. This sure was an amusing incident.

Stress

I think I am going to combust. I was told that the planned meeting to talk about the treatment plan for Evan was going to be delayed because Dr. Norman E. Shumway died and all the people involved in the meeting would be attending the memorial service. Jokingly I told the nurse practitioner that I would be going insane if I don't get information about the treatment plan soon. Apparently she took this a bit more seriously that I intended because the doctors had a meeting this morning.

The camps are still split on how we should proceed and I am the one that will be casting the tie breaker. I got the news in an email and the nurse practitioner will be calling me on Monday so I get a whole weekend to mull things over with very limited information. This is such a heavy burden. With his first and second surgery things were so clear cut, there was only one way to proceed. It was either surgery or watch our son die.

Now it seems to be a choice of two different paths that could both be equally good, but just slightly different. I just have a sick feeling. What if I pick one and then it turns out that the other way would have been better? You can never know what will happen and I hate second guessing myself.

I say that this choice will be mine because while my husband is a great guy he is just not as qualified to make the final decision. I have much stronger background in science, I am the one that goes to each and every doctor's appointment, I am the one that has done all of the research about Evan's heart defect. I have to take everyone's opinion and factor everything in and then decide. I know that the only way I can make this decision and be happy with it is with some divine help. I know that I am going to be praying a whole lot for wisdom in the coming days.

A Strange Email

I found this in my inbox today.

Hi Melissa,
I thought I might see you yesterday so that I could give you your invitation for the boys, but that's o.k.
I'll do it this way instead of trying to send it to you... It's faster!
K

Surrounding it was pink froo froo. It was an evite to a birthday party for a little girl that was turning five. The problem was that I had no idea who the heck was sending this to me. The opening was pretty ambiguous but it led me to think that it was from someone that I go to church with as not too many people have the email address that this was sent to.

After running through my mind all the people that I knew I decided that it could not possibly be someone from my church. I did not recognize the last name or the name of the girl.

I started getting really wierded out at that point. I am a stay at home mother so my circle of acquaintance is rather limited. I hang with people from my church since it is just plain easier. I see them on a regular basis and I know that we have at least one thing in common, religion.

I looked the name up in the white pages and came up with a person with the same name living in the same city where my husband's base is located. A light bulb went on with that discovery. I probably knew her from the Spouse's Association! I went back and looked at an old email that the president had sent out and there was her name and email address. The president does not use bcc so I am very sure that is how my email address got out.

I am rather puzzled about why K asked us to her daughter's party. I barley know her and my two-year-old son is not very interested in what her five-year-old girl is. Either she wants to be friends with me and this is her way of extending a hand of friendship or she is looking for lots of gifts for her daughter. I am trying to decide if I want to be cynical or believe that she has good intentions.

K is celebrating her 5th Birthday this year with a "Princess" theme. There will be a royal visit from Queen Daffodil, who will tell some enchanted stories, provide a puppet show, and may even have a few tricks up her sleeve! All birthday guests are encouraged to dress up.... as princesses, princes, knights, jesters, dragons, etc. to make for more fun.
I do need a few helping hands, so if you'd like to stay to help out during the party that would be great, if not, that's fine too... you can leave the kids and get some time to yourself.
The party will be from 6-7:30 p.m. The children will be served pizza, a juice box, and birthday cake.
Please R.S.V.P. by Mon. 3/20/06... and let me know if your interested in staying as helping hands, or if you'll be dropping off.
Thank-you and hope to see you there!
Hope to see you there!

I am just not very sure that this is something Evan would even be remotely interested in. I could be wrong though and he may totally enjoy the whole storytelling thing. I am certainly not going to drop off the kids and I may just leave the baby with my husband if we do end up going.

There is also the added problem of the time. It takes me roughly a half of an hour to get to the city where this is being held so even if we leave right at 7:30 we will be getting home right at Evan's bed time. Evan is seriously tied to his bed time. If I try and fudge it a bit he turns into a horrible cranky monster. He needs a good half hour at home of winding down time pre-bed time for us to have a good evening.

As you can tell I am very torn about this whole invitation. I want to be friendly but then it is not a very convenient thing for us. But then I could be a fuddy duddy and it could be a fun evening. Decisions, decisions. I am probably agonizing over this waay too much.

Fun at the Zoo

Today we made the trek to the San Francisco zoo for a fun filled day of animal watching. It was a first time for both of the boys. My sister was visiting a friend near by so she came along for the trip. She is the "adult" in all of the pictures I was the one taking the pictures.

A ton of exotic African animals and what does Evan get giddy about? A seagull!


Having fun splashing in a puddle.


Hey ducks where are you going? I just want to play.



My what a pretty tail you have Mr. Peacock!


I just want to say "Hi".


That is one big kitty!


Meow!


Harry snug as a bug in the sling.


What exotic animal is next?


Guinea pigs!!!!

There are more pictures but my camera ran out of memory and they are all on my sister's camera so it will be a bit before I get them. I really need a bigger memory card.

The Power of Choice

Lately I have been having a hard time getting Evan dressed. He would throw a huge fit every time I had to change a diaper or any of his clothing. Today I let him pick between two shirts, two pairs of pants, and two pairs of socks. Putting on his choices... were a breeze. Not one bit of complaining.

Nerd!

I am such a nerd!! I am all giddy because I just figured out how to edit the links section of my template. Of course this is the first time I have had to really sit down and mess with things.

The Condiment King

I think that we have more kinds of condiments than any sane household should. The main user of them? My husband. No matter how well cooked and how delicately flavored a dish could be, he always has to add something to it. I never cook with salt because no matter how salty something is he has to add more. When we have build your own taco night he will put an impressive amount of condiments on to the basic bean and meat. He will add cheese, salsa, and many different kinds of hot sauce (sometimes up to three different ones on one taco), sour cream, ketchup, and mayonnaise. Looking at him do this actually made me physically ill when I was pregnant with Harry, I had to leave the room or I would have lost it.

He is always dissing on his mother's cooking so I think this habit came as a form of self defense. I have eaten her cooking and while she is no five star chef it is edible. I actually have a tendency to cook at least once meal when we are over there just for a nice change. We never let them do the turkey if we are having Thanksgiving with them backaches she will dry the bird into jerky before she deems it done. This woman has no concept of medium rare. In her mind it is either raw and ready to cook of it is tough as shoe leather and ready to eat.

I am a pretty decent cook so it really gets on my nerves sometimes to see my husband dumping stuff on the food that I has taken the time to properly spice. Sadly though I am a bit of an enabler since it is soo easy to use his love as hot sauces as an easy gift idea. I guess I should just shut up and not complain for that very reason.

Mystery Solved!!!

I know where my husband gets his horrible sense of style, his mother. When we came home yesterday I was greeted by a very happy Harry who was wearing his older brother's pj top. I had carefully laid out an outfit that morning including a new onesie because he had been wearing the same one for awhile. He was still in that onesie with the pants on that I had placed out and then the pj top. Sigh.

My husband does that all the time too. I will ask him to grab something for the baby, usually when I am coated in spitup. He will either come down with something of Evan's or the ugliest outfit ever. You know the ones. Usually it is a gift that is given to you or just simply something that you, out of your mind, think is cute but once you get it on the child you realize that it is hideous but by then the child has messed the outfit up so you can't return it. So you keep put it away hoping that it will never see the light of day.

I pride myself on the cuteness of my children. I love to dress them in cute clothing so it is painful to see them in bad outfits. My clothing habit is fueled by my mother and my sister. My sister is a single nurse so she has a bit of money to spare and she loves spending it on her nephews. My mother has less money to spare since she is socking away a lot for retirement and my dad likes to buy things too, but she still manages to spend a fair bit on the kids. They both love Gymboree. I love that they give me their gymbucks because otherwise I would not be able to afford to shop there.

The store that I shop the most in is the Carter's outlet store. They have cute stuff which is more in my price range. My Carter's habit is so bad that there is a clerk there that knows me by sight and will come up and chat with me. I used to go to a lot of yard sales and thrift stores too but now that Evan is getting bigger finding cute stuff that is not trashed is getting harder and I have less time to look. If I ever have a girl look out because I will become a clothing monster.

Long day

We got up this morning at 4:30 in the morning. That should be illegal. We had to be at the hospital at six and of course the heart catheterization did not even start until 7:30. Evan charmed the heck out of everyone. There were two other groups of people there waiting with us and they all fell in love with him. He is going to be such trouble with the girls when he gets older.

He did not get out of the cath room until about 12:30 and that was only because the doctor got sick and they had to stop the procedure. We will have to go back for another one because while the diagnostic part was done Evan grew some extra veins that need to be blocked off. The doctor had to stop before the blocking off the the veins was done. This is very annoying but what can you do?

Evan came out of the anethesia much better than I expected. My husband and I held him on our laps so that he would stay laying down like he was supposed to be. He got to eat lots of things that were not so good for him which made him very happy.

This experience was much better than our trip to the hospital where Evan's GI doctor practices at. Going to this hospital was like coming home because I knew so many people that worked there. I also knew my way around. Everyone hardly recognized Evan since he has grown so much and really is looking more like little boy.

I am glad to be home though because I missed Harry. It is nice to have everyone back together tonight.

I hate traffic, I really really do!

It took me two and a half hours today to drive what is normally a one hour drive. It was the commute from hell in the Bay Area today. There was a fire in a train tunnel so that was shut down for awhile and then a road crew messed up and had to repair a pot hole closing down two lanes going south to the city. It was a good thing that I did not listen to my husband's advice on when to leave.

Husband: So when are you going to leave?

Me: Well, since the appointment is at 10:30 I am planning on leaving at 9 to allow some extra time in case the morning commute is still going on.

Husband: You don't need to leave that early the commute will be long gone by then.

Ha!!! I got about 15 minuites into the drive when I hit an hour and a half worth of stop and go traffic. Luckily I had my trusty cell phone and could let the nurse practicioner for Evan's cardiologist know that we were stuck. Our appointment was pretty flexible any way so it was no biggie.

I am seriously obsessive about getting to appointments on time. I hate hate hate being late, it makes my stomach twist and I get all stressed out big time if I am not early to things. I have no idea where this obsession came from but it has driven my life. I guess it is actually a pretty good thing since I am very rarely late for anything and am often early.

The worst part of today was not the traffic. It was Evan's chest x-ray. He had to be put in a tube thingy that held him still and upright. He was scared so of course he was crying and trying to get out of the tube. I almost cried when I had to step away for them to take the x-ray, I knew that he was terrified and there was nothing that I could to about it. This makes me more and more apprehensive about how the surgeries are going to go.

Who does he look like more?

It is fun to have people tell me that Evan is the spitting image of one parent or the other. I have a hard time deciding who he looks like more since I see so many traits from each of us in him. You decide, who is he like more?

Hubbie age 2
Evan age 2
Me Age 2
Evan Age 1
Hubbie Age 1
Me Age 1

Happy birthday Evan Stinkerpants!

Today is your second birthday. Time sure does fly by fast! This year has been a great year. You learned how to sit up and then how to walk. You got your first big boy buzz cut. You became a big brother. You have decided that eating is fun and have gone from 18 pounds to 27 pounds which is a big gain for a toddler. You said your first word: fish. You got your first pet and learned that opening presents is big fun.

Your third year is going to be tougher and filled with more challenges but mommy and daddy will be there every step of the way. We love you so much!

It is starting

Evan is having a heart catheterization next Friday. His cardiologist wants to get a good look at his heart before he has his surgery. This is the first big step to surgery so I am starting to get nervous, very nervous. I try to seem casual about this but deep inside I want to wave my mommy wand and just make him better with out having him having to endure all the pain that surgery entails.

Even his recovery this time around will not ease my worries. I had thought he was home free when he got released after a week in the hospital during his last surgery. I was ever so wrong because a week later he had his stroke. I still can't go into the room in my husband's parent's house where it happened.

Luckily my beautiful little boy keeps me too busy and happy to worry about him too much. It really is had to feel sad for him when he takes the life that has been given to him with such grace. He has such a forgiving nature. I have had to do things to him that no parent should have to do to a child and yet after the tears are gone he still loves me. He even loves his doctors and is not afraid of them. He is such an example to me. I just hope that I can be as good of an example to him as he is to me.

A bit better

Today was a bit better. Harry woke up super early and got Evan with his noise. He also puked all over me, even getting me in the face right before we were going to get ready to leave for play group. I did not have a clean pair of jeans so I had to wear some knit pants with no pockets.

The day turned around at play group. Evan had fun, Harry was good and I got some adult conversation. Harry actually took a nice nap so mommy got some much needed sleep. I think that I am going to have to rework his sleeping patterns. I have been rocking him to sleep but I think that him being out in the area with the rest of the family is overstimulating him so that he resists sleeping more. When I just put him into the crib he will complain a bit but quickly drift off.

Harry is so different than Evan. I had him on a great schedule by this age. He was sleeping great. I did the same things that I did with Evan yet Harry is not responding the same way. That really makes me realize that he is his own person. I can't wait to see what happens next with him, it is such an exciting jorney.

Irony

I find it very ironic that after helping to teach about the joys of motherhood to a bunch of teenaged girls I go through mothering hell. Harry is being the biggest pain right now. He has to be held almost all the time, he will not nap longer than a half hour and is getting up way too early in the morning.

I love my baby. I love holding him and playing with him and doing all that other mommy stuff. I just get so frustrated when I am trying to play with Evan only I can't really because if I put Harry down he screams bloody murder. I am so tired right now because after many weeks of sleeping solidly through the night he is waking up often.

Naps are out of the question for me to catch up on my sleep. Today was a great example of what has been going on. I give Harry a bottle, he falls asleep so I put him in his bed (where he seems to sleep a tiny bit better), get Evan lunch and put him down. Just as I doze off in bed the little stinker wakes up and will not even think about going back down.

This is all adding a lot of tarnish to the shiny joys of motherhood. I think the only thing that is keeping me from running away from home is the fact that I know that this too shall pass. I had many many moments like that with Evan and will have many moments like that with my next baby. It will pass and other challenges will arise and make me want to tear my hair out. Along with the frustrations comes the joy, the smiles, the laughter, the hugs.

The chocolate

This is the chocolate that my parents are nuts about. All the chocolate beans that made up this chocolate bar came from Venezuela. It is kind of like a wine and the flavors are supposedly different from diffrent chocolate beans from different areas. It is a nice intense dark chocolate and is very rich. You don't want to eat more than a few squares at a time. My mom says you even get a nice buzz from it but I did not notice that effect.

Bummer

Well poor C.J. had a bad cold so Evan did not get to have him over to play. I feel so bad for his mom. C.J. Was born a micro preemie and has been struggling ever since. He has lung damage from being on a ventilator when he was first born. Since then he had been in and out of the hospital with issues with his lungs. I have the feeling that he may be heading that way yet again but I hope I am wrong.

It really makes me realize that we have had it so lucky. Evan has been very good about not getting sick and needing hospitalizations. The worst thing that he has been sick with was a nasty tummy bug that he showed symptoms of mere days after getting out of the hospital from his stroke. I know that he picked it up from there. He was very nice and shared with mommy and daddy. Nothing is funner than going to Target to pick up a few things for a puking husband only to have to run to the bathroom yourself. A nice lady held Evan for me while I puked my guts out. It really freaked me out though because the last thing that the Cardiologist told me before we left the hospital was to not let him get dehydrated and here he was a few days later puking up a storm.

We did make a trip to Trader Joes today and some ginger snaps made everyone feel much happier. They make the best cookies there which is why I do not go there that often. I actually only went because my parents are addicted to a type of chocolate that they sell there and only there. How do I know this? My obsessed parents looked around for it. They do not have a Trader Joes anywhere near by. They live in Utah which is a very uncool state. They have to go to Las Vegas to find the nearest store (and they have actually done this).

Whenever a birthday pops up or some gift giving holiday I hook them up with a pile of chocolate. I feel like a drug dealer sometimes. Although thinking about it I am pretty poor for a drug dealer. I should jack up the price or something. hmmm off to think..................

Fun at the Doctor's office

Because Evan has a heart defect he gets a shot that is supposed to prevent RSV. It is annoying to me because it means that we are in the Peditrician's office once a month during cold and flu season. The good thing is that we have only visited him for this reason and not because he is actually sick or anything. This cold and flu season we lucked out because I have been able to schedule Harry's well baby visits at the same time saving me the hassle and travel time to multiple appointments. I would be taking the both of them any way.

Evan weighed 27 pounds and some change. He is getting to be such a big boy and is gaining weight so well now. He struggled so much to put weight on his first year and now in his second he is packing on the pounds. He was not too happy about the shot but after he had finished crying he was trying to get up onto the peditrician's lap and poke through his pockets. Evan is such a forgiving child. It amazes me that he recovers so quickly from things like that and does not hold it against the person that had to do the painful procedure.

Harry got weighed even though he was not officially in for anything. He is now 15 pounds 8 ounces. He is such a chunk!! I knew he had put on a bit of weight recently because my back hurts after a long day of holding him. Soon my back muscles will strengthen and then he will get even bigger setting the whole cycle over again.

We stopped at one of my favorite places to shop, the Carter's store at the outlet mall. There is a lady working there that worked there when I was pregnant with Evan and going nuts buying baby clothing. She had to ooh and ahh over Harry. I hadn't been in there since he was born. I was good and only got a few short sleeved shirts for Evan since the weather is starting to warm up. I could probably spend a fortune there if I had the money to do it.

That was pretty much the big event of the day. Tomorrow we are having a friend over to play (Evan will ignore him and play on his own while the other boy does the same. They may interact when the other boy plays with a toy that Evan really likes and then Evan will snatch it.) so I have to do a bit of picking up in the living room.

Something odd

I was just looking at the box that my birth control patches came in and I noticed that my husband's name was on it not mine. Does that mean that HE is the one that should be taking it? I have a feeling that it would not really work very well for him.

My new love

Harry's personality has really started to shine through. He is smiling and cooing a lot. It is so much fun to just hold him, smile at him and watch him smile and coo back at me. I have truly fallen in love with him.

The lesson was not learned

Evan's little pointer finger got nipped again so apparently my hopes were vain. For some reason known only to the tiny pea brained Larry, he decided to awaken while I was feeding Harry. Evan did his usual supersonic shrieking at the rodent's appearance and immediately made his way to the cage. I had to tell him several times to stay away but was helpless to actually do much about it because of the hungry baby in my arms. I look away to burp Harry and hear a shriek of pain. Evan is holding up his finger and it is dripping in blood.

If we were ever to have forensic investigators in our home looking for evidence of some sort they would probably end up very confused by what they found. Thanks to my darling child being on blood thinners and being a typical accident prone toddler we have blood droplets all over the place.

This time was no exception as Evan left a trail as I carried him upstairs to the first aid kit. The first bandage I put on ended up later being chewed off far too soon so there are also blood stains on Harry's bouncy seat. Of course I did not notice the stains until much later. The second bandage stayed on much longer because I taped the heck out of it.

I fixed the problem of tiny fingers and nippy rodents. I put some cardboard all around the cage to protect the animal and my son.

Phone frustration

We have been having the worst time with our phone/DSL this week. The DSL has been in and out, the phone line had been filled with static and we have been getting some horribly rude guy's line crossed with ours. He was yelling at my husband while my husband was on the phone with the phone company trying to get the phone fixed. It has been like pulling teeth to get an actual person to come out and fix our phone line. Their idea of a repair timeline is anytime on a specific day between eight in the morning and six in the evening.

The biggest irony of this whole situation is this is what my husband does at work, fixing phone lines and stuff like that. The only problem is that he does it for the military so that he can't fix our civilian phones. The boxes are locked up to keep people from messing with them. I find it very annoying that if we lived on base this situation would have been taken care of in a snap and probably would not have even happened in the first place.

A fun thing did happen yesterday. We finally got a printer after going without for about two years. We got a pretty basic printer/scanner/copier. It does not print pictures very well but it is cheaper to get them done at places like Costco any way. The printer did not come with a USB cable that we needed to have it connected to the printer and the crooks at the store we got it from were trying to charge us $30 for it. My husband goes to Wal-mart and they are there (on clearance no less) for $9. HA! Ya gotta love a good deal even if the store has appalling labor practices.

Well I managed to avoid the whole horrible chocolate ordeal that I usually face every Valentine's Day. I suggested to my husband that we should use one of the one pound gift certificates that he got for Christmas. His inner cheapness decided that not having to spend actual money was the way to go. While we were at the store there was this nice grandmotherly woman handing out samples. She was very taken by Evan who reminded her of her own granddaughter.

Evan's cuteness really seems to attract all sorts of people to him. One time when I was in the grocery store a mentally challenged person came up to us and told me that he was a very special little boy. That was something that I already knew in my heart but it was nice to have someone else say it. I think that his spirit really seems to shine through because we get people coming up to us all the time. I don't mean to sound conceited or anything but I do think that his broken little body has an especially bright spirit in it.

Feeling Good!

I am in such a good mood right now. I have my launch cast radio station rocking in the background, the kids are asleep and I have the computer all to myself. Life is good!

Oh I am also wondering if feeling not so bad that Evan got nipped by the hampster makes me a horrible mom. He hears us all the time telling him to keep away from the cage and yet he stuck his little finger in there and got a nip. I know that Evan understands that certain things are off limits because he will rarely go into the kitchen unless one of us is in there. He will try and sneak in but that only happens when one of us is cooking dinner and the other (usually my husband) is off in another room.

I can hardly blame to poor hampster for the nipping. Earlier in the evening we had him out in his exercise ball and Evan was treating it like a toy and batting the hampster around despite our best efforts to get him to stop. We put the poor animal away before Evan threw him across the room. I guess this is why I usually wait until Evan is asleep before I let the little bugger roam.

The only thing I really feel a bad about is that the nip made Evan bleed, which because he is on blood thinners really is not all that hard. I always feel bad every time he bleeds because even the smallest prick will make him bleed as if the actual injury was much worse. I hope that this will teach him to keep his fingers out of the cage but I am not holding my breath on that one.

Valentine's Day Chocolate

I am working on a way to get my own chocolate this year. My husband is a bit upset but I have not been able to tell him the real reason I don't want him getting my chocolate this year. The reason: he gets the cheap crap. Every stinking time he gets me chocolate he gets me the waxy, tasteless cheapest chocolate candy he can find. It is torture to eat it, but eat it I must or I will offend him.

I managed to dodge the horrible chocolate ordeal at Christmas time by convincing him that I had plenty of time to pick some up. I didn't really but I made time to drag both kids to the store and pick up some of the good stuff.

Now it is Valentines time and I am tired still of the bad chocolate. He is already mad that I figured out his gift to me which I could really not help since he was making it in the garage and I have to go in there now and then too. I get so very little chocolate now I just want to make sure that at the very least it is edible. Maybe I could strongly encourage him to get it at See's Candy.

Generally I would just grin and bear it. That is just how I am. But lately I have decided to cut back on some of the more fattening things of life so when I do splurge I wish to actually enjoy it. Hopefully a great plan will come to my mind before the big V day. I will keep you updated.

Eerily accurate

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have low extroversion. You are quiet and reserved in most social situations.A low key, laid back lifestyle is important to you.You tend to bond slowly, over time, with one or two people. Conscientiousness: You have high conscientiousness.Intelligent and reliable, you tend to succeed in life.Most things in your life are organized and planned well.But you borderline on being a total perfectionist. Agreeableness: You have high agreeableness.You are easy to get along with, and you value harmony highly.Helpful and generous, you are willing to compromise with almost anyone.You give people the benefit of the doubt and don't mind giving someone a second chance. Neuroticism: You have low neuroticism.You are very emotionally stable and mentally together.Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly.Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed - making others feel secure. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is low.You're a pretty conservative person, and you favor what's socially acceptable.You think that change for novelty's sake is a very bad idea.While some may see this as boring, many see you as dependable and wise.

The Five Factor Personality Test

The fun of hospitals

Well Evan's GI doctor got back to us around four in the afternoon. She had us do the one hour drive to the Hospital's emergancy room where theoretically she would be waiting to put the tube back in hopefully with out anethesia. Didn't happen. We got there and waited for several hours before she even answered the pages that the ER people were sending her. She took one look at the hole and decided that it was far to tightly closed so that he would have to go under to have it put back in so we were admitted. All tond I had to entertain a cranky shild five hours before we got a "room". The "room" was not much of a room. It was actually a curtianed area so you could hear pretty much everything. Evan was super cranky by now because he has been with out any food all afternoon in preperation of the possibility of anethesia plus he had been poked a number of times to get blood tests done and an IV in to keep him hydrated. He was allowed a bottle which helped calm him down and put him on the road to sleep. He woke up super early this morning so I didn't get much sleep. It sure is a challenge entertaining him in such a confined space.

To top all of this off my husband is acting like a bit of a jerk. Complaining that he has to take care of Harry all by his lonesome. Waaa cry me a river. I would trade places with him in a second if I could. I am sure that he would quickly decide that a slightly cranky baby at home is way better than a really cranky toddler in a hospital. At least he gets to eat his own food and relax in his own bed. I am here typing away while Evan is finally napping in a room for the families of patients wearing the same clothing that I wore all yesterday. I would love to have a nap too but it is just too noisy for me to sleep.

I wish we were at the hospital where Evan gets his heart surgeries. I know all of the staff there and you get your own real room with a real bed in it. I guess I have been spoiled and now I really know it. It is not a children's hospital so it does not have the same amenities that are here but then I think you get treated better because they don't have as many kids. It feels so impersonal here. Sigh. I hope that they get on things and get the tube back in soon. I really don't want to have to spend another day here.

Somebody take me to the loony bin!!

After an afternoon of caring for a cranky baby I pull up Evan's shirt to blow on his belly. What does my little eye spy? A belly that is free of a g-tube, all that is remaining is the hole where it should be. Horrified I hand him to my husband and rush upstairs to get the replacement tube out all the while trying to figure out when it came out. As I try and jam the tube in I realize that my worst fears are confirmed. The hole was closed! [insert your favorite swear word here]!!!!!!!! The only way to get the tube in again is to have another surgery. That means a week of the injected blood thinner (instead of the oral one he is currently on) and three days in the hospital along with several follow up visits with various people. In other words a huge hassle. An enormous hassle in a year of enormous hassles.

I am going to call his GI doctor tomorrow and pray that she will say that we should give him time without the tube so we can see if he looses weight or not. He is already doing pretty good with eating orally so he could pull this off (fingers and toes crossed). I just had not envisioned the tube coming out permanently this way. I had thought that my safety net would be there for at least a year after he stopped using it. It would be there just in case.

I am feeling a bit paranoid since pretty much for his whole life he has been tube fed. I never had to worry about making him balanced meals because I had the tube feeds as a kind of back up. Now I have to try and trick him into eating his veggies and all that fun stuff that parents of normal toddlers have to worry about.

We did eventually find the missing tube. It was nestled under Evan's blanket in his crib. It had to have come out at nap time since I had used it for his morning bolus. Every other time it has been pulled one of Evan's caretakers has been to blame and the extension tubing has been hooked up to the button. A long tube with things that will catch is asking for disaster so we try and not have the extension tubing in more than necessary. It was not in for this nap so there is a mystery here that may never be solved.

It is confirmed

We have a tooth coming in *sigh*. I just got through the whole teething thing with Evan only a few short months ago and now we are starting all over again. I also think that it is sad that Harry will have teeth before he can even eat real food. I guess that means we will not have to mess with baby food. He will be ready to chomp down on a steak before long. Both of my babies got shots today. I put Evan down for an early nap because he was looking tired. I hope he sleeps because I want a nap too.

Argh!

This has been one crazy busy week for me. To top it off I think that Harry is teething. He has this white line in his gums and when I feel it I think I feel something tooth like. Should a two month old be teething? I don't think so! I though Evan was super early by popping one out at four and a half months. I go to the pediatrician tomorrow so I will have him look at it. It could explain why Harry had not been going to bed like a good baby. I had to actually let him cry himself to sleep tonight. I felt like such a bad mommy but nothing I was doing was helping so I did nothing and now he is asleep.

I am hesitating to give him tylenol until I talk to the doctor because giving drugs to kids under three months can be tricky. They tend to hold on to them since their bodies are still maturing and some of the systems that clean the blood tend to not quite work as efficiently. This was brought home to me when Evan was a baby and in the hospital. The nurse gave him some morphine for pain control and he stopped breathing. Talk about freaky. Luckily there was an RT right there and she started bagging him while the nurse called the doctor down to give Evan a drug that would reverse the effect of the morphine. It was pretty intense for me since I was not used to seeing that sort of thing.

Topic change: I swear I am going to squish Evan's hampster like a bug. The little turd is incessantly chewing on his cage. He actually broke one of the bars by pulling it off of one of the the cross bars. Luckily he was not strong enough to pull it back enough that he could escape because if he had I would have just had my husband set a rat trap to get the bugger. I am so not having a rodent running free in my house. He is not a very friendly creature, probably because we don't handle him enough but we have very busy lives and he is mostly Evan eye candy any way. Evan loves to watch him move around in his cage. His shrieks are incredibly piercing.

Pretend Friends

I should be in bed but I need to write. I have been pondering lately about the nature of my online friendships and if the fact that the friends that I spend the most time with them makes me pathetic or not. I am a recluse by nature and love my alone time (this has been a bit tricky for me since I got married and had kids) so it is hard for me to keep up on real live friendships. Growing up my friends were friends of convience. I never really keep friends more than a year at a time. I would pick one or two out from my class and hang with them during the school year but once summer came I was a homebody and spent a lot of time reading alone in my room.

Now that I am an adult and summers of reading alone in my room are no more (sigh) my real life friendships are even more spotty and sparse. My online friends however have stuck with me. I have one that I have known for over five years. That boggels my mind. I have never before had a person that I talked to on a regular basis for that long. She has stuck with me through my marriage, several moves and me having kids. Her wisdom has kept me from killing my husband and she has given me many tips on raising kids. She is a great older mentor to a young crazy mother.

I have other women on my buddy lists that also have helped me through tough times. Often these conversations happen late at night when the kids are in bed and we should be also. But it is soo nice to be talking with another adult that you keep typing away. I could never do that with a real live friend because the people I hang with go to bed early like sane people. In fact as I started typing this paragraph one of my good friends came on and it is 1 am where she is. I think that I will not let myself feel silly for having friends that I have not met. They are real people and hopefully some day I will get a chance to meet these great people face to face.

A loong day

I am exhausted. Trips to the city always do that to me because they are never for fun, always for doctor stuff. My husband got the day off to come and help and ask his questions of the cardiologist. Nevermind that I have already told him the answer, he must ask someone else and get the same answer that he got from me in the first place. He was a help though and was useful for holding and hauling Harry around so I will forgive his annoyingness.

We started out by leaving early to visit some friends that we have in the city. I actually met the wife and baby son while Evan was in the hospital for his stroke. Her son was in for pH probe to test for reflux and an eating evaluation. We both were able to commiserate over the eating issues of our kids. Evan has progressed much better than her son I think partly because I am more willing to let him eat or not. She still feeds her son baby food and he is over a year old with a good mouth of teeth. I tried the whole baby food thing but because Evan was not into eating he would puke it up at me. Once I let him try his own finger food at his own pace he really started taking off. She is not as willing to let him try it himself but then she also has a more intense personality than me.

After a nice visit in which Evan showed off his mad eating skills to his friend we made our way to the hospital for the appointment with the cardiologist. Despite leaving 20 min early and only having to go a few blocks to get to the hospital from my friend's house we got there right at the appointment time. Parking and one way streets threw a wrench in my well timed plans.

Evan freaked out while being weighed (25 and a half pounds!!!) for some odd reason. He always hates being placed on a scale. His sats were in the low 80s which is ok but not great. The pacemaker interrogation went fine. The guy that did it was obviously not used to working at the hospital because he asked if we had had the pacemaker surgery at another near by hospital. I was like umm why since they have a perfectly good pediactric heart surgeon here. Evan was kind enough to show off his walking ability for the cardiologist and her nurse practicioner who were both very impressed. I really like that the doctor is not distant with her patients like many can be. She is always very willing to pick up Evan and interact with him. She never minds when he acts like a toddler which often means that she might not get to listen to his heart as much as he would like because he wants to see the sethescope.

The echo was the thing I was really worried about going well. Evan can be very squirmy and hates to be restrained in any way if it stops him from getting something he wants. I brought some Baby Einstein which he is addicted to and chocolate which he is also a huge fan of. Both of those along with a light thingy kept him suitably entertained long enough for them to get the images they needed.

His surgery is going to be in the spring sometime after his birthday. The cardiologist then dropped a bit of a bomb on us by saying that they would probably be doing the fontan in the fall after he had some recovery time from this upcoming surgery. This is because he is growing so well. I am happy at the thought that his major surgeries would be over before the end of the year. It also makes me even more glad that Harry is on formula since I will be spending so much time in the hospital with Evan this year. Of course there is pacemaker maintanace and other things that could be thrown at us so I will never think that he is totally done with surgery but this is a nice step.

Harry decided to be a stinker this evening. He puked up his late evening bottle and after the bath and other fun decided that he was not going to sleep unless it was in my arms. I was just too tired after the busy day to deal with that so I let him fuss a bit after jumping through all the usual hoops to get him to sleep. He settled down without too much crying thank goodness (I would have caved if it had gone on much longer).

A sad, sad thing

Yesterday my excitement was going to my friend's apartment and helping her clean it because she was moving out. It is kind of sad that I jump at the chance to help someone clean just so I can get some conversation with another adult that is not my husband. That is part of the fun of being a stay at home mother. I love it!

A wanna be crafter.

My mother is great but she is no Martha Stewart. There is a reason that it is a cruel irony that she gave birth to four girls. She is craft impaired, which is a name she calls her self. As kids we never had our hair neatly arranged and were never dressed in matching dresses for church. So imagine my surprise when I opened my Christmas present and potpourri came scattering out all over the carpet. My mother had tried to make her own gift basket filled with nice smelling bath things and with the potpourri as a filling. The funny thing is that it never occurred to her that the filling would come out because it would be tossed around in the mail.

It is a good thing that her daughters did not inherit her lack of craftiness. Each of us has our specialty with me, as the eldest, being more of a generalist. My youngest sister is a great sewer and loves to make costumes for things like Halloween and the premiers of Harry Potter movies. The next one up is a great crocheter, she loves to make afghans and things like that. The one up from that is a bit of a crocheter too but she really excels at knitting. She loves to make hats for my kids and makes sure that they match the coats that they are wearing for the winter.

I am a scrapbooker, cross stitcher, knitter, and like to do the general crafts. I actually took an art class in Jr High called arts and crafts where we made things with random things. It was fun and challenging which is where I think I get my general love of crafts from. I like being able to take something and make something decrotative from it. Scrapbooking speaks to me because it is a fun way to organize my pictures. I make them tell a story instead of them being a random collection of pictures.

Where did the day go?

How is it that I only managed to do a few things today and yet I was crazy busy all day? This seems to be how my life is now that I have kids. I wake up manage to get breakfast done and a little play time for Evan. Then it is time for snack and errands. Once we get back from the errands it is lunch and nap time. After nap time it is time for a snack and more play time. Daddy comes home and then it is time to start dinner. After dinner is bath time and and a little more play time if Evan is not too cranky then it is time for bed. This is a quiet day for us.

Today I had an appointment for a weight check for Harry. The pediatrician was worried that he was not gaining fast enough. I think Harry heard that and decided to get on it because he had gained eight ounces five days where before he was gaining about an ounce a day. My husband had the day off so I did not have to drag Evan with me thank heavens.

It was pouring down rain all day. I have a feeling that I should start building an ark or something. This is supposed to be going on all week too so the flooding is going to be getting worse.

Insomnia

I hate it when I fall asleep early in the evening and then wake up to go up to bed but can't fall back asleep. I conked out around 9:30ish and woke to the faint sound of Evan's feed pump going off which is what I was trying to stay up for in the first place. It had been going off for a good 45 min by the time I heard it. Luckily it did not wake Evan. Just as I was drifting off in my comfy bed Harry woke up for a bottle. He has not been eating as well as I would have liked because his nose is stuffy but after giving him some saline up the nose he ate a good four ounces. These last few days he has been falling asleep pretty deeply the second the bottle touches his mouth. I manage to keep him up enough to eat but it takes some patience. Which of course means that I am the one that has to feed him all the time because my husband is not nearly as patient as I am.

Christmas was pretty fun and busy. Church was nice. Evan was actually pretty good and only had to be take out once. He had bonked his head on the pew ahead of us and was crying really loudly. We kept him pretty busy by stuffing him with fruit snacks and playing with his beloved cars. Present opening was interesting too. Once Evan got one present open he was more interested in playing with that than opening other presents. He was also not really into the whole tearing of the wrapping paper thing either. Harry was doing his whole sleep eating thing in the middle of the present opening so I ended up opening mine one handed for the most part. My husband got a butt load of DVD's so we spent the afternoon glutting ourselves on them.

We are both huge fans of TV shows on DVD. I love the no commercial thing and it is great to watch them when I want and being able to go back and watch a part that I may miss due to a loud child. I also like that we will be able to share these shows with our kids when they get older and the shows are long off the air. I think that eventually if things keep going the way they are we may just give up TV all together and just watch the things we have on DVD.

Merry Christmas!

I love the evenings after everyone (including my husband) is in bed. I tend to stay up way too late just because I enjoy not having someone demanding something of me. I get to relax and do what pleases me with out fear of being interrupted by a shrieking child. Here I sit typing this message on a quiet Christmas Eve. Evan went to bed early despite having opened an interesting toy. Harry stayed up later probably due to his cold. My husband stayed up the latest of all because of his bloody nose which was started by roughhousing with Evan but continued because my husband the Eagle Scout forgot that when trying to stop bleeding you must keep the pressure on the spot for an extended period of time. He is also taking sudafed for a cold which I am sure did not help one bit.

I am excited for tomorrow. We will be going to church in the morning with the boys all dressed up in their matching outfits. Then comes the present opening. After all that we will be starting the nice Christmas dinner with a small ham. For our Christmas Eve celebration we had the traditional junk food dinner. Then we started the "gingerbread" house and Evan ate way more candy than was good for him. After bath time and all that we opened a present each. I cheated a bit and let Evan open another one just because he opened a sippy cup instead of a toy. All in all it was a nice evening and it goes to show that now that we have kids we do not need to travel somewhere to have a decent Christmas. We are just fine with out own which is good because a career in the military means that we may not have the chance to travel some years.

Obsession

I am a woman that is obsessed with eating. Having given birth to a child that has medical issues which include eating issues I have become very conscious of how much he eats and when. This obsession spilling over to my perfectly healthy baby. He is not growing as fast as the pediatrician thinks he should be so now I am starting to obsess over his eating too.

I have a private theory that my kids are just slow growers like my husband and I were as kids. Of course neither of us were giant at birth but who says that giant babies have to grow into giant toddlers?

My husband's current obsession is this smell that he says is in our fridge. I think it is funny that a man that claims to have no sense of smell and will not smell poopy diapers even if the child is sitting on his face is being so bothered by an odor. I really can't smell anything outside of normal fridge smells. This has caused him to clean the fridge out so there is a big upside to this obsession. We now do not have any funky food in the fridge and it is sparkling clean with new boxes of baking soda in it.

Evan's current obsession is with his leap pad alphabet ball. It plays songs and will say the sounds of letters along with saying the name of the letter depending on the mode it is set with. He loves pushing buttons and the fact that it lights up when playing a song it an added bonus. He laughs hysterically when he hears some of the letter sounds, X especially cracks him up.

Harry is obsessed with his stomach and making sure it is full which is why I am trying not to worry too much about his eating. The kid is like a clock, wanting food every two hours. His appetite is a bit off because he does have a stuffy nose but if I suck it out he will breath much better and suck down a four ounce bottle in no time flat. Pretty good for a one month old.

Contradictions

I am very much a person that is pro breastfeeding yet my son is formula fed. I know all the wonderful and magical things that come when you nurse your child and yet I mix bottles of formula for my son.

Nursing for us was pretty much a doomed prospect. When Harry was hours old the nurses were giving him formula because his blood sugar was low (Ha! So much for their assumption that because he was a giant child at birth that I must have had gestational diabetes). He was also tongue tied and having rapid breathing issues (which sent him to the NICU) so nursing was really hard.

Once he got clipped and got rid of the excess fluid in his lungs which was causing the rapid breathing he was very much into the instant gratification of the bottle. I could have pumped for him. I could have even tried using a nipple shield but I just did not have it in me. I pumped for 14 months for Evan but then he was my only child and more medically frail than Harry in the first place so it was more imperative that I get him the breastmilk.

After dealing with a child that has eating issues where every feeding was a struggle I was quite frankly happy that he was eating. If I was a better mother I may have decided to fight harder to keep the nursing going but the reality is that Harry is my second child. I have to feed Evan and him every two hours and adding pumping into the mix would have just meant that I would never be able to leave the house. I was going nuts doing it and I had my mother and husband at home to help with the kids. I felt like that all I was doing was feeding and pumping.

Selfishly I also wanted my body back. I have been pregnant and nursing for over two years. That takes a lot out of a person especially when you have large babies and also have to deal with the health issues of one of the kids. It is so nice that I can leave the house and not have to rush back to be in time for the next feeding. I can go to a girl's night out and not have to bring the baby.

So while I know all the wonders of breast milk I am not crying over not nursing (well not too hard any way). I know that my Harry will survive this decision and that it is very likely that he will grow up to be just as bright as his elder brother.

It is over!

I am now a much lighter person as I have recently given birth to a giant child. I was having a bit of euphoria because of the birth. Harry was sleeping well and so was I. This had changed recently, the little stinker decided that he did not want to sleep at night. Now I am in the hell of sleep deprivation. I swear that this kid would be great for torture. Maybe I could sell him to the Department of Defense for use in interrogation of terrorists.

Harry for the last few nights has started fussing every time that I put him in his bassinet. He does not cry right away. He waits until you are back in bed and just about to drift off into a blissfull sleep. That is when the grumbling starts. If you ignore it, he will then start with the howls of protest loud enough to wake the dead. This process went on all last night with out stop. He would sleep just fine downstairs, but the instant you wanted to go to a soft bed and sleep he would have his little beady eyes wide open.

I am so going to take a nice long nap today(thanks to my mother in law who will watch the kids for me). I feel bad for my poor husband who does not have that luxury. Hopefully this will be a short term thing because I really need my sleep or I go psychotic.