Two weeks

It is hard to believe that Daniel is already two weeks old. He had a great check up, he is already back up and a little over his birth weight. When the doctor listened to his heart he did not hear the murmur, so it is very likely that when he has his follow up echo in a few weeks that nothing at all will show up and that the hole that is present in fetal circulation is closed even if it was a bit slow to do so. Daniel also passed his follow up hearing test, so he officially hears even though we already knew that.

It has been an interesting adjustment having a "little" baby for the first time. We had to actually go out and buy some newborn sized diapers. The sized one diapers were too big to fit him properly with out covering his umbilical stump. He is also drowning a bit in his 0-3 month clothing.

Evan is cracking me up when it comes to "his" Baby Daniel. When he saw the umbilical stump he thought that it was Daniel's manly bits. I had to explain to him what it was and he actually seemed to get the concept. Later on when we were taking the baby to the hospital for the follow up hearing test Evan thought that we were exchanging "old" Daniel for a new Daniel. After all we were taking him to the place he had come from. It took us awhile to convince him that the Daniel we brought home was the same one we had always had. Evan is also obsessed with holding his brother, which he can actually do with a bit of help from me and the couch.

I finally got around to giving him an actual bath for the first time. Like a good mom I took blackmail pictures and am sharing the cuteness.

Aww look at that very sad face.

Someone is not very happy about having his bath.

Overdue update

I have been rather wrapped up in baby stuff which is normal at this stage. Here is a bit of a run down on the stuff that has been going on:

• Daniel decided that he would give nursing a shot, but only for one day. He latched on beautifully and nursed proving to me that he could do it. But in the middle of the night changed his mind and wanted to have a bottle. Once that decision was made there was no convincing him otherwise. Things are a lot nicer now that we are not battling wills at feeding time even though I would much prefer him to nurse. I do feel good about the effort I made to nurse him. The hospital had amazing lactation support and I feel like this time around I did everything I could and that there was nothing more I could have done.
  
• Good news: My c-section pain was very quick to leave. I only had to use two of the nice happy pills that my OB prescribed. Bad news: over the weekend I developed a pinched nerve in my neck which had transformed into the worst headaches of my life. The happy pills have been rather helpful for this when used with heat therapy. I am hoping that soon I will be able to actually function with out drugs in my system. I am so glad that this is happening when I have a lot of people around to help out, because otherwise it would be very hard for me to deal.
• Evan has a blister on his left foot due to his foot brace not being properly put on. I feel bad that I was not able to prevent this, but it was also not really in my control. He will be wearing sandals until it heals, so it is a good thing that the weather is getting very nice.
• Projects are being done at a fast pace. My husband and his father have been keeping busy doing things like building a compost bin, moving our shed so that it does not flood when it rains too much and finishing the bookcase that we moved with us in pieces. I am thrilled about the bookcase because that means I will finally (after almost a year!!!!!!) get to unpack my books and not have a pile of boxes sitting in my living room for guests to look at.
• I am starting to get a touch of cabin fever and wanting to get out more. If my headaches behave and leave like I want them to I may actually get to go out on a date with my husband so that we can see the new Star Trek movie which I am rather excited to see.
  

Pictures

The many faces of Daniel

The peaceful sleeping face

The Overlord is displeased face.

The almost gas smile face.

The "Rarw!" face

The gentle kiss from big brother face.

The cute little toes! (try not to drool on your keyboard)

I am home!

And for the first time the baby came home with me.

The delivery went pretty smoothly. I was apparently contracting rather frequently while they were monitoring me, so it was very likely had the original c-section date been there I would have had to have gone in earlier. I had been kind of having the feeling that things were beginning to start so I was glad that I was able to hang on long enough that it did not end up being an emergency situation where I had to rush and find someone to watch the boys.

Daniel Michael made his appearance at 8:53 am and weighed a very nice 8 pounds 4 ounces. His head was 14 inches around (compared to Harry's whopping 16 inches). We have been struggling with nursing big time and now that my milk is in (thanks to the mad pumping skilz I learned with Evan) he has no excuse and still will not latch properly. The lactation support at the hospital I delivered was awesome and ironically much better than the hospital I delivered at in California. The lactation consultant just could not get him to latch so we are taking a bit of a break and I am pumping for the time being to maybe see if he will change his mind and actually decide to be easy on mom and nurse.

Daniel has a bit of fluid still in his left ear so we have to go back and have his hearing retested. He also has a slight heart murmur that was checked out with an echo this morning. It is nothing major and very likely that the teeny hole between the atrium has not shut yet. Evan's cardiologist reviewed the echo but the wall between the atrium was not very well pictured in the echo so we will go back at the end of June for another look. I am not worried a bit since really anything that does not make him turn blue hours after birth is really not much to worry about at all.

I am feeling pretty ok, tired but my pain is not too horrid. Something that helped me recover a lot quicker in that area was that my OB did not use staples to hold my skin shut. I always felt awful until they were taken out when I had my c-sections with the older boys. It feels very nice to be non pregnant, I still catch myself squatting to bend down and pick stuff up when I don't have to any more. It is also nice to take a deep full breath. sorry if this sounds a bit disjointed but I am typing while pumping, on pain medication and after a night filled with sleep that was hardly deep and restful.

It's baby time

I will try and get my husband to update with pictures and everything. He is a computer guy but still clueless in the art of blogging and actually clearly communicating the information that is necessary for people to know so I may have to bribe him to even try and then write out a post on paper for him to type here. He also has no idea how to post pictures, so this could get interesting. I am praying for a smooth delivery and a smooth recovery (something that has not exactly happened either time) so I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers as well. I really need "baby stay out of the NICU" vibes sent my way.

Evaluation

I have been dreading Evan starting Kindergarten. Due to his heart defect and stroke I always knew that learning issues would be very likely. How could they not be? Most kids get all the oxygen they need to their brains from birth. Most kids do not have damage to a significant portion of their brains. Still, I hid my head in the sand and pretended that Evan's issues were largely physical in nature. I knew this would have to end when it came time for him to enter Kindergarten. I even considered homeschooling him so that I could pretend a bit longer and I could shelter him more from all the potential bullies and mean kids out there. However after prayer and the realization that our personalities are such that I would probably blow a gasket if I was to be entirely in charge of his education I decided that the public schools would be in charge of most of his education... for now.

Evan had his initial evaluation today. He can be very inattentive at times, especially when something he is being asked to do is not something that he really cares to do and that affected the the results. In most of the areas he was tested in he was either at the low end of normal or just below normal, so I do have the hope that he will be able to catch up to his peers with some extra help. He is getting a further more intensive evaluation in a classroom setting for the next two weeks which of course is going to be fun what with the baby coming on Friday an all. It sure is going to be an interesting juggling act but as this is the last evaluation session for the school year there is not much choice. I really wish that we had known our moving fate in a much timelier manner so that we did not have to rush at the last second to get everything done.

I just can't help but reflect on all the crazy and huge things that have gone on in the past year or so. There have been so many massive changes that it has been hard to keep on my feet and rolling with the punches. I really find it interesting that so many things with Evan and the baby have come to a head at the same time (the diabetes diagnosis and Evan's surgery happening at the same time ect). I really wish things would slow down a bit so that I can just relax and enjoy some of it but I am not seeing that happening.

(late) Sunday Cuteness

The boys dancing around our defunct yard light.

Harry modeling my newly finished mittens. I managed to finish them in time for the weather to get nice and hot rendering them useless until next winter.

This is a very blurry picture of Black Fish and White Fish our newest fish in our tank. The danios we had in there died (probably because I was horrid about remembering to feed them but I have reformed, honest!) so I thought some pretty goldfish would look nice in the tank. Evan likes the black one the best "because it is cute". Harry likes them both equally and they both love watching the tank and squealing over the fish.

Nothing seems to go as planned

I got a call this morning shortly before I had to be out of the door to take Evan to a follow up pacemaker appointment in the big city. It was my OB's office wanting to reschedule my c-section for the 1st. Which is one day before my in-laws are coming to town and my husband starts his time off that he scheduled for the baby. Greaat!

Luckily I have a great visiting teacher who was able to watch my kids for the actual c-section (even though we will have to drop the kids off around 6:30 in the morning) and my husband was able to get the extra day off he needed. Plus the Relief Society President is on the ball and going to get us dinners and the extra babysitting that we will need. It has been so stressful scrambling around trying to get everything replanned that I had already planned just because some hospital big wigs decided that my OB needed to attend a conference (one that I am sure was not planned at the last second). I could have gone with one of her partners but I really like her and would feel uncomfortable with anyone else at this point in time.

The upside is that I will be unpregnant several days sooner than I had anticipated even if I am not all that sure I can handle three kids. I guess I should have thought about that before getting pregnant lol!

So any way

Life is chugging along. I had my second to last pre baby OB appointment (eek!) yesterday. I actually weigh a pound less than what I did when I first came in. The Ob is not worried since I do have the diabetes thing going on and I was rather pudgy before going into this pregnancy. It is rather obvious that the baby is growing nicely.

I have officially given up on potty training Harry for now. He pushed the issue to train and he did potty train for a brief week or so but now has decided that it is not on his agenda any more and it is not like I can force this on him, he has to want to do it. The straw that broke the camel's back was Sunday and Monday. Sunday he pooped his pants moments after getting dressed for church. Part of our getting dressed routine is having the kids go to the bathroom before they get dressed for the day so there was no excuse. Then he had another accident as soon as we got home from church even though I had just asked him if he needed to go. Finally after going through two pairs of pants I left him half nekkid and he ended up pooping on the floor (argh!!!!!).

Monday he peed his pants at the OB's office and had to do the entire appointment wet since all my extra stuff was in the car. Moments after getting home and me asking if he needed to go he went in his pants again. I just do not have the the mental energy to keep this up any more and to top it off our washing machine is out of comission for the time being. I put him in a diaper and he did not ask to go potty all afternoon. I am just so frustrated since I know he knows how to manage his elimination when he wants to and he is the one that initiated the whole process in the first place. Sigh.

Just so this blog is not all whining and complaining I present you with some pictures of my cute kids.

Harry at one of the easter egg hunts we went to. He spent more time picking up the fake grass that some kid dumped out of thier basket than actually looking for eggs. I don't have any of Evan because he took off in a totally different direction.

A lot of grass and no eggs in that bucket, but lucking mom found him an egg before they all got snatched up. One of the bigger kids gave harry some of his eggs (with some prompting from his mother) when he saw that Harry did not have very many.

Harry: "Let me go!" Evan: "I love you too Harry" (For some reason this is what Evan says instead of a plain I Love You.)

I got the kids some spill resistant bubble tumblers after seeing them in action at Evan's Occupational Therapy. The boys adore being able to blow thier own bubbles and I like not being forced to almost pass out to satiate thier fascination with bubbles.

"Look Mom!"

I love seeing the boys actually play for longer than five seconds with out fighting.

Yes, I am running THAT low on laundry. Lol!!! Actually this is something that Evan decided to try on his own. Awhile back I jokingly put him in that laundry bag and he thought it was the funniest thing in the whole world. Now I have to try nad keep him out of the bad so I can actually put laundry in it. My husband helped him with the strings on the arm to keep the bag up.

"Hop, hop, hop"

Thanks

Thanks for the wonderful birthday wishes. My birthday was a very adult birthday. No one showered gifts on me or followed me around making me feel special at every moment. I still had a lot of errands and every day things to do. It was not a horrible day since I made it a point to get a nap. I figured I deserved it since it was my birthday after all. My big fun thing will come on Friday, my husband has the day off so I get to go to me weekly non stress test all alone and after I am hitting a yarn store to spend my birthday money.

It's my birthday!

So now I am entering into my thirties. My twenties were a time of huge change, it is strange looking back on them and seeing what I have become. When I turned 20 I was single, childless, and still very new to being an adult. Now I am more practiced at being an adult, even though I would much rather be a kid and be able to avoid a lot of the un fun stuff that comes with being responsible. I am married with two and a half kids, we own two cars and a home mortgage. The time when I could pack all my worldly belongings into the back of my dad's truck are long gone.

I am pretty excited to see how things change for me in my thirties. We will be adding another baby to the family, the kids will be getting older and (hopefully) more mature. I know a lot will be happening even if it is not as drastic as the life changes I went through with my twenties. I know I am going to be a lot grayer (Thanks Dad for those lovely genes!).

Hoppy Easter!

It has been a crazy stress filled week for me. Saturday we went to two egg hunts, one thrown by the ward and one by my husband's work. Sadly not a lot of pictures were taken because my pregnant body was too slow to get action many shots before the action was over. I may do some recreation shots at a later date, if I can remember to, but considering my spacey mind I would not hold my breath.

I am still pregnant and I am really starting to anticipate not being pregnant even though I still have a bunch of stuff to get done before the baby comes. I can't believe how packed this month has become, I have even been doing some double booking even though I hate having to push my self to do two things (ie appointments) in one day. I loved having at least part of a day at home and quiet yet now when I need the quiet the most I am having to cram things in.

Next month

So on Friday we finally (!!!111!!!!!!!!!) learned that we were going to be graciously allowed to stay here for another year. (Imagine that sentence with a massive helping of sarcasm) My husband thinks that the person in charge of deciding who moves where ran out of money in the budget to move people and caved in and let us stay. Thank goodness for some budget cuts I guess. It sucks that we will have to face yet another year of wondering where we will be moving to and how long the idiot in charge of deciding that will take to actually write the orders out (he has been late every year, if he was a civilian he would have been fired for incompetence by now). Not that I am pissed off or bitter or anything. Nooo not me!

Guess what I am going to be doing next month on May 6th. You are right, I am going to be having a baby. That is when my c-section is scheduled and since both of my boys have been stubborn and had to be evicted I am not anticipating going early. I was kind of hoping that he would be born the 5th so that his birthday would be 5-5 but 5-6 is still pretty cool. It is kind of relieving to be able to say that I only have so many more appointments before the baby comes. I am looking forward to the end of all the discomfort that has come with sleeping at night. Some mornings I wake up so sore that it feels like I have not been sleeping at all. I think I may be doing exercise videos in my sleep. I am looking forward to a nice bowl of cereal in the morning.

I have been having some odd food cravings of late. I think I could eat sauteed mushrooms all day long. Another more urgent craving has been for boneless buffalo wings. I have been eating them for lunch almost every day. Even though they burn my stomach I can't get enough. Luckily both of my cravings are low carb so I am free to indulge in them (within reason of course). I wonder what it is about them that is driving me nuts.

Name game part two

You guys are good! The names were pulled from a list of awful names that were sent to me by the NP that works for Evan's old cardiologist. She was trying to be helpful (with friends like her, who needs enemies? lol) when I mentioned that we were having a hard time coming up with a name for the little guy. I suppose to could have tried to claim that I was in labor, but that would have taken too much planning to pull off.

I have been relatively silent of late. Right now I am trying to not freak out that WE STILL DON'T KNOW if we are moving this summer or not ( WE STILL DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!! my head wants to explode right now), facing Evan's IEP which I put off even calling about since WE STILL DON'T KNOW if we are moving this summer or not (and it may be too late to get it done before everyone leaves for the summer so his Kindergarten entrance could be delayed while they evaluate him), and gestating the baby (who, IF WE WERE MOVING, would be so little and I hate the idea of having to move with an infant). It also does not help that I am having a hard time sleeping thanks to the pregnancy and a mild yet annoying cold that is running around the house. So yeah I am just trying to stick my fingers in my ears and pretend that everything is going smoothly even though WE STILL DON'T KNOW IF WE ARE MOVING AND THAT MOVE COULD HAPPEN AS SOON AS JUNE.

The name game

My husband and I are having a hard time agreeing on a name. It seems like what he likes I hate and what he hates I like. We have managed to come up with a list that we can't narrow down so I thought I would put it out there for you all to look over and add your input.

• Urlington Darkrin
• Huntquail Watcat
• LeCreed Leonimandas
• Dexman Cobartt
  

Please be kind, it has taken us months to come up with these names and it has been a very tough decision.

Sob!

This weekend Kansas got a bit of snow. The worst of it was west of me, but my poor little daffodils are all wilty and frozen now. Kansas is such a tease! I was all excited for Spring to be here but Winter just had to sneak in and ruin everything.

Spring flowers

The CHD Blog Carnival is up if you would like to read some of the other submissions.

Here are some pics of the few spring flowers that we have in our yard. I am a huge fan of daffodils so we planted over 100 bulbs last fall. The tulips were here when we moved in. we also have a flowering cherry tree that is looking a bit weather beaten after ultra windy storm we had a few days ago. I can't wait for more things to start growing and blooming.

Bebeh Pictures

I have been having rather frequent ultrasounds thanks to the possibility of a heart defect and my gestational diabetes. Today was my last one (woo hoo!) before the baby comes. He is still a boy and is looking healthy as can be. Thankfully he is also not measuring off the charts for size although he is still on the big side.

I also had my first 3d ultrasound. It was neat to be able to get a peek at what the baby looks like. He seems to be very much like his brothers in appearance. It was hard to get a good face shot because he was obsessing over his hands and kept sucking on them. I think we may have another thumb sucker on our hands.


This is an earlier picture that I found hilarious. It looks like I have an angry alien in my stomach waiting to come out to take over the world.

Gifts and Challenges

Steve at Adventures of a Funky Heart (go on and check him out, he is awesome) is having a blog carnival about heart defects. I obviously can't write about having a heart defect but I can write about having a child who has a heart defect, especially since Evan is not old enough yet to write for himself.

When we found out about Evan's heart defect my world turned upside down. All the expectations that I had for my firstborn son were shattered. We could be hopeful that he would survive his surgery but it was never a guarantee. We also had to face the fact that even if he did survive his life would be vastly different from what a "normal" kid's would have been. There is still a lot of uncertainty in Evan's life even now, only time will tell if he will grow up into an independent adult who is able to have all those things that parents hope for their children. The specter of him needing a heart transplant in the future is still there hovering over us.

With all those challenges have come gifts. We could not have asked for a better cardiology team to get him through his tough surgeries. There was no time to research and pick them, we ended up just going where our insurance sent us but even though it was a small program that may have been overlooked by more picky people we were made to feel at home. I never felt stupid when asking any questions. I never felt like I was being rushed through an appointment. They took the time to treat Evan as the child he was and were willing to work around his occasional stubbornness. The hospital where he received his surgeries had an amazing PICU where you could see the doctor on duty and never had to wonder who was making the decisions about many aspects of your child's care. Added to that were wonderful nurses who would treat me as an equal in the care of my child. In addition to his we have had many wonderful therapists who have helped Evan recover from his stroke.

We do not know what the future holds for our family. We can sleep easy knowing that we are surrounded by wonderful caring people who are willing to make sure that Evan gets the best of care.

Reader requests

Damselfly wanted some tips on how to garden with little "helpers". When it is time to work in the yard I try and do what I do when I want to attempt something in the house. I try and find some aspect of the chore they can help me with to start with. If that is not working I find them something similar to do in another area away from where I am working. If that is not working then I banish them from the area altogether.

When we were planting the bulbs last fall we let the kids help put them in the ground after my husband dug out a trench for the bulbs. We ended up having to go back and put most of them the right way up, but the kids had a fun time until they got bored. When they got bored and we still needed to plant more bulbs I let them dig dirt in another part of the garden. That entertained them enough that we were able to finish the bulbs. Had the digging caused problems then I would have shooed them off to the back yard where we could keep them contained and out of the way with out having to do more than check on them every so often.

As the boys get older they are able to do a lot more around the house. Harry loves helping with the dishes and can be trusted to put the silverware away in the drawer. He will even separate the smaller spoons from the bigger spoons instead of putting them all together like certain husbands. When I was vacuuming the dining room this morning he rushed downstairs to get his toy vacuum to "help" me. Both boys love doing laundry and could almost do it on their own if they were a bit taller and had a bit more discernment about what they would put in the washer. It is nice to have two short people to do all the bending down for me now that I am getting on in my pregnancy. We now expect them to help clear the table of dishes after the meal (well often it is from the meal before, but we can pretend it is right after the meal). Heck Harry will even get me a new garbage bag when I take out a full one to the trash can and I am sure that if he knew how he would change the toilet paper roll. If Harry keeps his helpful ways up he is going to be a dream husband.


A couple of you have asked to see my pregnant belly. The picture is not that great but I don't really care enough to go and take another. I need a new camera since mine is over five years old and starting to show it's age. The sad thing is that I just now actually figured out how to turn the flash off when I want to. I don't feel as big as I did with my other boys but that also could be my imagination. I do know that my weight gain has not been nearly as insane thanks to my strict diet.

Grrr!

I think my kids are out to get me. Not only is Harry still a bit hit and miss with the potty training, but now Evan seems to want in on it too. He had an accident yesterday and had two today. One was mere moments after I asked him if he needed to go potty. Luckily this week is our downish week where I am not completely slammed with appointments, I am only kind of slammed with appointments. I am going to get our timer back out and have them going every hour. Maybe that will drive it into their brains. I can always hope.

On a nicer note I have been able to get out into the garden. After I posted those lovely pictures of my bulbs coming up it snowed. Boo! Then later in the week we hit a record 86 degrees! Woo hoo! This weekend we managed to find a source of compost (at a local big box store that I hate shopping at, go figure) and other organic gardening goodies. If you don't want to use chemical fertalizers in your garden here in Kansas it can be tough to find stuff. A nice nursery that was close to my house stopped selling compost and I was rather miffed. The big box store that I can tolerate shopping at had nada, so I took a chance and looked at theone I hate shopping at. Now I am planning on slowly piling on the good stuff into my front beds. The former owner was of the let's use shredded trees as mulch school of gardening. I want something that will actually break down into the soil and enrich it instead of just sitting there forever. Hopefully we can get the front beds looking nice.

Happy Birthday Evan!

This post is a bit late thanks to me deciding that I was going to stop complaining as much. It has been a bit rough the last few days thanks to naughty children (more poop messes and a food dye incident both thanks to Harry) and my hormones. Angry Pregnant Woman is out in full force and roaming my house.

Evan did not get to have his cake until tonight because he decided to test it out early yesterday. It was one of those I have to go to the bathroom really quick and while i am in there something messy and bad happens incidents. The cake was not too badly damaged but since I had just told him right before I went into the bathroom that if he touched it he would be in trouble I had to follow through.

Here are some pictures. Elmo did not quite turn out the color I wanted but I had already used so much food dye that I did not feel I could really add any more. That frosting wanted to stay pink even though it did get darker as it dried turning a lot redder. I am never ever going to make another one of these cakes. It is just too frustrating for me to try and get that color right. The artist inside me wants perfection and has to have the perfect color and it just drives me nuts.

This was a tough shot to get because my baby belly kept trying to get in the way.

The last two shots are why this cake will not be hanging around too long.

Yargh!

My kids are so amazingly lucky they are cute because after today ugly kids would have been sold off to the gypsies.

One of the highlights of the days was Harry attempting to clean up his own poopy underwear. I was taking a nap since my husband got home a little early from work and woke up to a lot of yelling and sobbing. My husband was trying to get Harry to tell him where he had put his underwear out of fear that he had flushed it down the toilet in an attempt to clean up. Poop was everywhere in the bathroom, on Harry and some even made it downstairs. I calmed Harry down enough to get him to tell where the undies were and then realized that he had poop all over his shirt and on his hands. Nice huh?

This is the second time this week that Harry has tried to clean up after an accident and it went just as well the first time around. He hopefully knows now that he gets help from mommy and daddy next time he has an accident. I think I may stop giving him any fiber containing food just to cut down on the mess. Other than the poop potty training is going tolerably well. He has finally realized that he can't just pee any old time he wanted like he did in a diaper and is able to go longer between reminders. We are still having accidents but not nearly as many.

Evan is still playing up his "injury" even though his physical therapist gave him a through evaluation and could not find a blessed thing wrong with him. There is no reason he should be refusing to weight bear on his left foot other than the attention he gets from being hurt. I almost bumped into him with out actually touching him and you would have thought that I had gravely injured him the way he was carrying on. It is getting irritating and I am having a hard time getting him to realize that he is more likely to get a real injury if he carries on like this. I am trying to give him more attention at other times in the hopes that this will snap him out of it.

Both kids are suffering severely from selective deafness. They are only hearing me when they really want to and if it is something that they don't like they think that whining and crying about it will change my mind. Sadly all it does is earn them trips to their bedrooms (mostly so I can calm down and stop feeling like I want to smack them). I wish they had not hit this naughty stage simultaneously. I think I could handle it a bit better if they had just gone through this phase one at a time. Thank goodness it is the weekend!

This make me want to squee!

Oy!

It has been one heck of a week. Cranky kids (thanks to colds) and a cranky mommy (thanks to a mild cold and cranky kids) do not mix well. I though it would be a snap week since my husband had two extra days off. Ha! That is what I get for thinking.

Evan injured his foot but since there was no actual sign of swelling or other injury we were baffled as to the true nature of the injury. All we knew is that he was refusing to weigh bear on it. Of course this happened on a day when I absolutely had to be somewhere so I ended up dusting off our stroller to cart him around in. The foot is better and he has been hamming up the pain for attention's sake. When he is at home he can walk almost normally but when someone else is around the pain is almost unbearable. Sigh.

Evan also got a nasty bloody nose thanks to his inability to keep his $%@$##ing finger out of his nose. He is still doing it and it is frustrating the heck out of me. Luckily it did not take too long to stop the bleeding but there was a lovely blood trail for my husband to clean up with the carpet cleaner.

Harry is having mixed results with potty training. I have a time set for every half hour to remind him but he is not showing much initiative to go on his own unless he is bored. When he is bored he would spend hours on the potty if he could. He loves flushing the toilet so much that it clogged last night and overflowed. I was rather irate about that one. I am not sure but I think he is pooping in the potty which is a very good sign. I have not seen any logs in the toilet since he loves flushing but he has also not been going in his undies. He is either constipated or actually using the toilet.

The baby is still a boy (nothing has fallen off in utero) and developing fine. He would not hold still so they were not able to get very good pics of his heart. I am going back for yet another scan in a month thanks to my gestational diabetes. They want to make sure that he is not growing into a monster baby.

I did my oh so delightful 24 hour urine test (my mental voice is dripping with sarcasam as I type that line) only to find out when I dropped my jub off that my orders were lost. I was about ready to loose it when I heard that. It was humiliating enough to have to do the supid test in the first place and the possibility that I might have to repeate it was stress inducing. Luckily I had a lovely tech that took the my jug and also a blood sample (to cover all bases) and called the doctor to get everything figured out.

I got my eyes looked at (yet another gestational diabetes thing) and got the "why are you even here?" vibe from the doctor. He said that unless I had been diabetic before my pregnancy that the likelyhood of me having eye damage was quite low. I had a blast having various lights shined into my eyes and various eye drops put in them. My eyes were also dialated which was loads of fun and even with the sunglasses they gave me I ended up with a headache.

I am hoping that we can do some fun stuff next week so that I don't have to keep complaining in my blog. Evan's birthday is coming up and I have to start planning it now.

Potty training or bust!

Harry is a boy on a mission. He wants to wear underwear in the worst way. Sadly he is not able to keep said underwear dry, but hey that is just details right?

Harry started flirting with potty training a few weeks before Evan's surgery. It was not a really good time to have this happen since I really did not have the distraction free time to devote to making sure that he was going on the potty regularly and keeping dry. I have been stringing him along a bit by letting him go when he asks (which is generally after he should go, again details) but now he is stepping up the pressure. On Saturday he took off his diaper and put his pants back on minus the diaper. Of course since he is still not getting that you just can't go on demand and have to go when your bladder is full an accident resulted.

I gave in to his demands even though I was hoping to put it off until the weather was warmer and tried to start the half nekkid training that I did with Evan. Harry was having none of that and would not settle for less than pants and undies. I think that I am going to have to try a new technique on him so that we can stop the accidents. I ask him a million times if he needs to go when he is wearing the underwear but he always says no and then of course an accident happens. I may try a timer or something. It is a bit exciting to think that there may be a small time period where I have no kids in diapers.

This whole potty training battle also illustrates the vast personality differences between the boys. I think that had I not forced the issue Evan would still be in diapers and happily crapping his pants. Peer pressure did not phase him a bit, he was happy to do his own thing. Harry on the other hand sees everyone else around him using the potty and therefor he must use it too so he can be like us. We all wear underwear, so he must also wear underwear. Let me tell you Harry is a force to be reconed with once he gets an idea in his head. The Terrible Twos have nothing on the Terrible Threes.

Happy Valentine's Day

Today is also Heart Defect Awareness Day (Get it? A day about hearts and love is a day when we should remember that some hearts are born wonky.) Any way it has been one draining week for me, so I don't have a special meaningful post to put up. One of the realities of having a child with a heart defect is that there are a lot of doctor's appointments to deal with and often there is therapies as well adding to that my heavy load of appointments leads to a tired mom and this week was jam packed with appointments.

Evan finally got into occupational therapy. We were on the waiting lift forever but I hope it will be worth it. In California Evan's physical therapist was doing a ton of the things that on OT would do so we were able to have only one person taking care of both therapies. At the center he goes to for his PT things are a bit more rigid. I wanted to get in at this center though because they also work at the school district that Evan will be attending Kindergarten (gasp can he really be that old?). I wanted there to be some continuity of care with his therapy.

The crazy thing with the evaluation was that the woman doing it was able to get Evan to do a lot of things that I have been trying to get him to do for months now. He happily tried to trace letters for this woman. If I had tried to get him to do it he would have looked up at me angelically and told me "Mommy you do it." He even did well with cutting a shape out of a piece of paper considering that I have never purposely let him touch scissors fearing all the damage he could inflict on the house with them. I was never worried about him doing too well since he had the obvious handicap of only doing all these things with one hand. It does prove that he is a slacker at home when he thinks he can get me to do stuff for him.

I had an OB appointment today and the baby is still in there. He kicked up a storm when they were getting his heart rate. I get to go to an ophthalmologist to have my eyes checked out since I have gestational diabetes and they want to make sure that I am not loosing my eyesight thanks to that. I also get to collect my urine for 24 hours so that they can see how well my kidneys are functioning. I am oh so thrilled that I get to go to yet another appointment and get to store my pee in the fridge for a day (the things you do when pregnant). Now that I am heading into the home stretch for my pregnancy I have bimonthly appointments to add to the mix.

I swear it seems like for the last few months all I have been doing all the time is going to doctors appointments. I am really hoping that Evan's appointments taper off now that his pacemaker surgery is over. Evan doesn't seem to mind a bit though and has actually asked to go see a doctor when faced with the dreary prospect of spending a morning at home. I will never see going to the doctor as a form of recreation no matter how hard I try.

Oops

I can't believe that I have been such a slacker blogger. This week has been just a boring normal week filled with rather boring normal stuff. The weather has been insanely nice for the last two day so a lot of time has been spent doing stuff that we have not been able to do all winter. My poor filthy minivan is now a lot cleaner on the outside. In fact we actually spent a lot of time today cleaning since it was our family's turn to help clean the chapel. Evan and Harry had fun running around in the church "helping" clean. We gave them dry rags and occasionally they swiped them on something. They were quite entranced by the wringer on the mop bucket and helped squich the mop. We had a lot of good clean fun.

In case you were wondering

Things are getting back to normal. Evan has decided that he really likes the flavor of the Tylenol we were giving him for pain, so he now plays up his non existent pain and then immediately asks for "tummy medicine". I figured out his con when he decided to crawl all over me while I was lying on the couch. The entire time he did not even let out a whimper yet when asked later on to go upstairs he groaned as he got up from the couch and really hammed up the pain. The "tummy medicine" is now officially gone (even though it really is not) and he will just have to suck it up if he gets a twinge now and then.

We went back to church as a family for the first time in three weeks. Harry did not have an issue with his new class the first week, but this week he objected strenuously to it (crying and sobbing very piteously). My husband had to sit with him for the first part of Primary while I taught our class. I noticed them pacing the halls later on when it was the Jr Primary's turn for classes, so I switched with my husband. Harry would not even enter the class room for my husband, but with mommy in tow he warmed up a tiny bit to his class and consented to a little bit of coloring. I am hoping that eventually he will decide that Sunbeams is not such a scary thing and that maybe he could go all by himself.

As far as my gestational diabetes goes I think we are getting an handle on it. I started the insulin while Evan was in the hospital (I felt kind of odd going into the bathroom to shoot up my drugs) but was not noticing a difference in my fasting numbers. I gave it a few more days after Evan got home before calling my OB just to make sure that stress was not throwing my numbers off. My dose and the time I took it changed and that seems to have helped a lot.

I am not very keen on the idea of injecting myself, even with the ultra tiny needle that I am using but I am sucking it up and doing it. I am questioning if I want to go through all this again if we do decide to go for a fourth child like we had planned. It does not help things that I am entering what I call the Old Lady stage of my pregnancy. I am showing a lot and starting to slow down. I get hip pain at this stage in the pregnancy and that makes walking not very fun, but if I don't walk my hip pain is worse. I can't just sit up rapidly any more and have to take it slowly in stages. Rolling over in bed at night is also starting to get difficult. A big up side is that my heart burn is not nearly as bad as it was with my other pregnancies. With Harry I had it so bad I had to take Prilosec or I could not eat. This time around it is more occasional and easily treated with Pepcid.

One fun thing we did this weekend was get the boys bunk beds. We have been looking around for a while now and a guy at my husband's work reccomended a store in a nearby town. We found a really sturdy set for a very nice price and even managed to get mattresses for a really nice price to boot. Getting everything home in our minvan was a lot of fun. We had planned on stopping to eat lunch out but since we kind of blocked the kids in the back with the cargo we ended up just eating at home. The boys love thier new beds and Harry is thrilled to be sleeping on the top. This set comes apart into seperate beds but the boys were so enamored of the idea of bunk beds that we decided to put them together for now, but if Harry gets wild with them then we will seperate them so there is less chance of injury. I will post pictures later when I actually take them.

Hospital pictures

We are moving back to normal (whatever that is). Evan is still adjusting to the fact that I am not here at his beck and call any more and Harry is adjusting to not being the only kid at home any more. There has been a lot of fighting and a ton of whining (I want to cover my ears and hide). It helps that Evan is finally over his poop issue, which I am sure was causing him a lot of discomfort. I kept telling him that he would fell better once he went, but being 4 he did not believe me. Thankfully we have turned the corner on that one so sharply that we are now having the opposite problem. I never thought I would be so obsessed with poop before I became a parent.

Here are some pictures from the hospital. I did not take many, I kind of forgot that I even had my camera with me.

Here is a cheerful pre-op Evan. They had a lot of toys for the kids to play with. One was a Transformer which really weirded Evan out. He would not play with it when it was in robot form and kept telling me that cars did not have hands.

A not so happy one day post op Evan. He did not like that the nurse and I kept dragging him out of bed to walk around. This was taken after he was finally allowed to be on a nasal cannula for his oxygen. Before that he had a mask which pissed him off to no end. They wanted the mask because it worked better on Evan since he tends to be a bit of a mouth breather. It was jut not worth the battle so they changed it to the cannula. Note the milk shake that was in his hand. It was his first meal post op, I wanted him to have something tempting and easy to throw up should his stomach object to eating.

My husband and Harry visited on Monday. Harry was quite interested in the bed and Evan was more than happy to show him how it worked. Evan loved making the bed go up and down repeatedly. I had to be quite firm with him at times since he preferred playing with the bed to napping.

Aaaaand the sock is off!

Harry thought it would be fun to take his socks off and was quite put off when I made him keep his on.

We are home!

I am exhausted and my back is killing me, but I am oh so happy to be out of the hospital. Evan is equally as thrilled for the most part, although he is sad to leave the frequent TV watching and constant attendance of mother behind. We still have a slew of follow up appointments in the next few weeks but it will not be long before our lives are back to semi normal.

Update

We are doing better. Friday after I wrote my update I talked to the Pacemaker Cardiologist about my concerns about Evan's pain. She came up with a great plan that involved a combo of Oxy, Tylenol and a litocane patch to numb the area around the incision in his side. He was also allowed some morphine as needed. This seemed to help a lot and the day was relatively pain free.

We got him out of bed to help speed the healing process along. He did need some morphine after our expeditions but otherwise was quite comfortable. He was also allowed to start eating again, which I am sure helped his mood some. We were supposed to be transferred to the floor but they were short on beds. Last night was filled with a whole lot more sleep than the night before it.

We got to transfer this morning and are happily situated in our room. All the rooms here are single, so we do not have to share or worry about loud roommates. He also got his chest tube removed and they stopped giving him oxygen. The chest tube removal was icky but he looked a million times better after. He is a lot more willing to move around and get out and about. I am working on the nurse in hopes that they will remove one of his two IVs ( he has one in each hand).

Got to go but will write more later.

Doin time

Evan's pacemaker surgery went well. He went under about nineish and was out by about 11:30. His lead was replaced and instead of going through his chest again the surgeon went through his left side. He was concerned about the possiblity of scar tissue from is previous surgeries.

Evan spent most of the day tranked out on morphine and oxycodone but the doctors became a bit concerned about his breathing and the fact that Evan was having a hard time going pee. Honestly I am not sure how much of the pee issue is him rigidly adhering to his potty training or if it is truly an issue from the painkillers. They cathed him to empty his bladder and are considering leaving one in if he continues to have issues.

Last night was tough because of pain control issues. The oxy alone was not enough to get him comfortable enough to sleep so another painkiller (fentynil ?? not sure of spelling) was finally ordered despite his bladder issues. It was quite heartbreaking seeing him in such pain and not being able to do much about it. Sometimes kids with incisions in the side are given epidurals for the pain, because it is a lot worse than if they go through the chest but because Evan is going to be getting back on his blood thinners an epidural was nixed due to the possibility of bleeding issues. Pain control seems to be something that is tough with a kid like Evan. Morhpine and other related drugs can depress breathing which Evan depends on to help pump his blood. Motrin and other related drugs can mess with his INR and cause bleeding issues. That leaves only a few painkillers that he can take and sometimes they are not as effective as the others.

The hospital here is quite nice. The PICU is huge compared to the one we went to in California (although to be fair they did recently move to better updated quarters). Evan's room actually has it's own bathroom, so I don't have to leave the unit every time I need to go. All of Evan's nurses have been very nice and helpful. I have not seen much of the doctors which is something I really miss about California. We got a lot more face time with them and they were very good about coming around and explaining the plan for the day. The surgeon that did Evan's surgery was nice enough but he was not nearly as compassionate and caring as the surgeon that did Evan's first heart surgeries.

Today we are hoping that Evan gets moved from the PICU and into the cardiac stepdown unit. I am also hoping that we get a good handle on his pain so that he can get the rest that he needs to heal.

Lots of stuff

Surgery is on for tomorrow morning. It was a really long day today filled with a lot of "fun" stuff. One really nice thing was that we got to stay in one room for most of it and only had to leave the room for the chest x-ray. They also had a lot of nice Car's related toys that kept Evan entertained for the majority of the time. I was bored out of my mind but did not dare bring my knitting.

The surgeon has decided to replace the lead so we will likely be in the hospital until Sunday. Instead of going through Evan's chest he is going to go through the side. He felt that the scar tissue from his previous surgeries would probably cause more trauma than was really needed to replace the lead. I am really keeping my fingers crossed that we have an uneventful stay so that my husband does not have to take any more time off of work. His current shop is a lot more sticky about stuff since his bosses are civilians and not military.

While I was gone my OB's nurse called and talked to my husband for a bit. I called back later and got educated over the phone about injecting the insulin (since there was no way I would get in any time soon to get face to face instruction). It was kind of redundant, since I was already well aware of how to do a sub-q injection having had a lot of practice when Evan was on Lovenox. I got enough to insulin at the local pharmacy to last me until the home health care place that is handling my testing supplies can process everything and get me my drugs mailed to me.

Frustrating

I am seriously frustrated with my OB right now. I got shoved into the first diabetes education session that they could schedule despite what it would mean to my schedule (I ended up rescheduling it because there was no way I could make it) and yet when it comes to finding out if I will be using insulin or not all I get is delays.

After the consultation with the dietitian that I wrote about earlier i was given the impression that things would move quickly. So I was surprised when I went in for my appointment last Thursday when I found out that the OB was not even in. I spoke with the nurse and found out that the OB's kids were sick but that I would find something out on Friday. No call happened at all that day and then of course was the three day weekend. I call this afternoon to see what was going on and after a bit of runaround I find out that the doctor is not even expected to be in until this Thursday!

I really would have appreciated some sort of notification instead of having to call and dig it out of the staff. I am waiting for some important information so a courtesy call is only polite in my book. I ended up hanging up on the receptionist and bursting into tears thanks to my lovely hormones.

I would like to clear up my last update a bit. After a lot of back and forth between the doctors it was decided to not admit Evan to the hospital prior to his surgery, so we are not in the hospital at the moment. I realized that after I talked to my mother last night I had not even mentioned that here. The good news is that when I tested him INR this afternoon that it was the 1.5 that the surgeon wanted, so it is looking like we will not have to change our already tight schedule any more. I am going to be so glad when this is over. I am getting really tired of doctors at the moment.

Sigh

Well Evan's pacemaker surgery has been pushed back a day. When we did his INR test at home this afternoon the results were a bit too high for the surgeon's liking so he wanted to give Evan more time for his INR to fall. I plan on trying to get Evan to eat as many green leafy vegetables as possible so that we don't have to move his surgery date again.

I love warm buns!

Back when we were shopping for our minivan I though it was so silly that all cars with leather seats came with seat warmers. After all, how long did it really take to warm the seat with your own body heat?

Now that I live in Kansas, where it can get fricking cold, I am deeply in love with my seat warmers. I think I would marry the person that invented them if I was not already married. I would do horrible things to anyone that threatened to take my precious away.

When you are shivering waiting for your car to warm up nothing is nicer than feeling your seat warm up underneath you. It is the first thing to heat up in the car. I love you seat warmers!

BTW in case you can't tell it is crazy cold here in Kansas again. The bank singn as I drove by read -3!

Ah well

Last week I talked with a dietitian and got educated about how my gestational diabetes would change my life. I got a good meal plan that (for the most part) is easy to handle and very doable. I was getting really good numerical results from my blood sugar testing but I was also having ketones in my urine (which meant that I was not getting enough carbohydrates in my diet). Upping the carb content of my evening snack resulted in fasting blood sugars that were too high. I can't cut back on the carbs because I and the baby need them, so now we are moving on to insulin.

I had hoped to avoid needing medication and I was so hopeful that I could lick this thing with diet alone, but my body says otherwise. It is looking like I will only need one shot in the evening before I go to bed, but of course that final determination is up to my OB who I talk with on Thursday. It will not be a big deal to poke myself one more time when I am already jabbing my poor fingers four times a day.

As a bit of an aside, Evan was very interested when he saw that I had to poke my finger. The process is very like the testing I do on him to check his blood thinning levels. He has even asked me to do it again just to amuse him. Both boys love to gather around when it is finger poking time and watch in fascination as I do my thing. I am pretty sure they are convinced that I am doing it for them.

The hardest part about the new diet had been the need to change my breakfast habbits. The placental hormones are strongest in the morning, so that is when insulin resistance is highest. That means that my bowl of cherrios and large glass of milk are gone and have been replaced by one piece of toast, a small glass of milk and eggs (which gives me wicked bad heart burn). Milk has been the hardest hing for me to restrict, I have discovered that I was the main milk drinker in the house because we are not going through it nearly as fast as we used to. I am looking into sugar free drinks because I am getting very tired of plain water and I refuse to invest my carb servings into juice because you get so little juice per serving. I still get some milk, but not nearly as much as I used to drink.

The main thing that is motivating me is the hope that I will not have another 10 pound baby. I would be nice to be avle to use some of the newborn sized clothing that I have stashed away. Evan and Harry were into 0-3 months at birth.

How not to make a good first impression

Evan's pacemaker surgery is fast approaching. I had not heard from the surgeon's nurse about when to stop Evan's coumadin so I called the office to see how they wanted it done. Every practice is slightly different so I did not want to just rely on my memory of how his previous surgeon did things.

I called and apparently they had no idea that he was even on blood thinners!!! I was more than a bit flabbergasted at that bit of news. The secretary tried to excuse it by telling me that they had not received his records from his current cardiologist, but I pointed out that he has been on blood thinners for a good long while so it would be in the records from California too. Sigh.

The good news is that they are now aware that Evan is on blood thinners. The bad news is that this office likes to admit children on blood thinners before the procedure and put them on heparin (which has a shorter lifespan in the blood stream) . So while the procedure is not scheduled until Wednesday, Evan and I will be headed up to the hospital sometime Monday. Fun times! I really missed eating crappy hospital food and trying to keep a bored and very healthy child entertained. I even get the fun of trying to sleep in a hospital room with all the noises and interruptions that happen.

Fooey

Gah! I hate heart burn. That is all.

Hey look something shiny!

To distract you from me updating about how I am doing with my gestational diabetes (I don't want to jinx anything) I am going to tell you something funny that Evan said this morning. I was peeling a hard boiled egg as part of my breakfast. Evan saw me and told me that I should let the chick out of the egg. I laughed but had to think of a way to explain to him about how this egg was unfertilized. I ended up telling him that some eggs had chicks and some did not and this was an egg with out a chick.

Sunday Cuteness

Today was Harry's first Sunday as a Sunbeam. It is strange to think that both of my boys are old enough to be in Primary with the "big" kids and are no longer the "babies" that are in Nursery. My husband and I got to meet our new class. Previously we were teaching the 11 turning 12 boys but since there were only going to be 2 this year we got the girls too. It should be an interesting but fun class. Some of the girls could potentially get the teenage attitude but I think that they will behave during class if I can keep it fun and interesting. the boys I know will be no trouble since I am friends with both of their mothers. They know I would have no issue with talking to their moms if they misbehaved.

I was trying to take a picture of just Harry but Evan decided to get in on the action too.

Harry looking introspective and serene.

I tried for a smile picture but he would not take his fingers out of his mouth and we were running late.

Happy New Year

We rang in the new year in our typical way, everyone asleep except for me. 2008 was a very interesting year for our family, it was not bad but at times it was quite stressful. It has been interesting adjusting to our new home and missing all our old friends. At times I have been more than a little homesick. All those stresses came with good things though. It was exciting becoming first time homeowners when we had previously thought we would end up only in areas where we could not afford a house. My husband's promotion has given us extra breathing room and a chance to pay off our debts early.

We are hopeful about 2009. We know we will welcome a new addition to our family in the spring. Hopefully we will not have to move yet again this summer. Evan will start kindergarten this fall, which is going to be hard for me since I just can't get my mind around the fact that my first baby is now old enough for school.

I am pregnant so I am taking it easy on the resolutions. I am only setting one which is taking more pictures of the kids. I discovered when I went to assemble our yearly picture calender that the latter part of the year was very thin when it came to picture selection and I want to change that for the upcoming year. Here is a start.