Mother's Day - Trauma - Check-up

I had a wonderful Mother's Day.  Joseph had a bit of a cold when he woke up so he was really needy and Samuel just wanted to snuggle all day.  It was like they knew it was Mother's Day and wouldn't leave me alone.  Dave took us to a beautiful brunch at the Missouri Athletic Club.  Normally Dave and I pig out at yummy all you can eat brunches, but this time it was Samuel and Joseph.  Samuel ate so much that at the end he looked at us and said he needed to go home.  He was holding his stomach and saying he was "soooo full."  It was actually pretty cute.  After brunch we all took a little nap and then played outside for 45 minutes or so.  It was so hot.  My day was great and I felt so lucky to be with all my boys.

Mother's Day right before we went to brunch.  (Looks like I am grabbing Joseph's crotch, but he would have slipped right off of me if I didn't hold him like that.)

Joseph was loving his breakfast

Samuel was loving that he got to have two juice boxes, which never happens (and a plate full of black olives)

Quick note before I tell the long ER story.  Joseph had his 15 month appointment today.  He is doing great, but he is so much smaller then Samuel was at this time.  He is just my little man, but with his Dad's big head. Here are his statistics:

Height:  31 inches (48%)
Weight:  24 lbs. 6 oz (49%)
Head Circ:  49 CM (92%)



First emergency ER trip.  Yesterday I kept Joseph home from Mother's Day out because he had a slight fever all day on Sunday and was getting over a cough.  I had so many errands and work I needed to do for Woman's Place, so I was looking forward to a day alone.  I called our babysitter that normally picks Samuel up from school on Mondays and asked her to come over early so I could try to get stuff done.

I was very productive in the morning and then I picked Samuel up from school at 11:45.  We got back home and they boys ate lunch and were playing around, so I decided to get back to doing work.  I was downstairs in the basement trying to organize things when I heard a huge thump and then Joseph screaming.  I don't even remember what I was doing or how I got up the stairs so fast but after I heard that sound I knew that something was not good.

When I got upstairs, our babysitter was holding Joseph and I saw some blood on her hands and he was covering his head.  I grabbed him and she removed her hand and there was a big gash.  I haven't really experienced many big wounds, but I guess you just know what to do when you see it.  I think I was calm for about 10 seconds and then my crazy side kicked in.  I immediately knew that we needed to get to the ER because he was going to need stitches.  I grabbed a terry cloth towel, shoved it on his head and then started yelling.  Samuel was completely freaked, which he normally gets when someone is hurt so he was basically frozen.  I knew that I couldn't hold onto Joseph while I drove and he needed continuous pressure on his head to get it to slow down bleeding.  So I screamed that everyone needed to get in the car.  I asked my sitter if she could drive so I could hold the towel to Joseph's head in the back seat.  I know she was completely freaking out too and she asked if she could sit in the back and hold the towel and I could drive.

That was probably the best idea that I drove because at least I could drive like a mad woman and get there fast.  Once we got in the car, I called Dave to meet us at the ER and check us in.  There is a hospital in St. Louis not far from us that has a children's ER and I knew we could get in there pretty quickly and I wanted the opportunity to ask for a plastic surgeon if we needed one to sew up his head.

Our sitter did a great job of slowing down the bleeding and she held his gash closed.  Joseph wasn't liking it very much and screamed the entire way.  I got from our house to the ER in about 15 minutes.  I was flying.  The Silver Stallion held up great.

We got to the ER, got straight in and looked at by a doctor pretty quickly.  She said that the gash looked like it could be fixed by glue, but she wouldn't know for sure until she cleaned it out.  Once Dave heard that it was going to have to be cleaned out, he was already getting queasy.  Since we had two cars at the ER, Dave took Samuel and our sitter home and I stayed with Joseph.

He was really out of control and wouldn't calm down, so they asked if I wanted to give him something that would relax him.  Of course I did.  I didn't want them to be stitching up his head while he was going nuts.  They gave him some meds and put numbing gel all around his cut and wrapped him up.  It was going to take 20 minutes for everything to kick in.

Here he is waiting to get looked at.  The drugs were slowly kicking in:

Drugs started to kick in.  The numbing ointment had just been put on

The doctor finally came in and said that she was going to clean out his gash, check it out to see how deep it was and if stitches were going to be required.  She said if she couldn't fix it with glue I could decide if I wanted to plastic surgeon to come in.  They swaddled Joseph all up in a blanket to hold him still, which still required a nurse to hold him down and hold his head and I held his legs down.

When she cleaned it out she said it was much deeper then she thought, but when she squeezed it shut it came to a perfect straight line, so she thought she could glue it shut.  We decided to try that.  She used a TON of glue, but it did the trick.  Then she put extra bandages to keep it closed.  I told her that she needed to put something else on top of that because Joseph would rip it off as soon as he could.  So that is why he got the big neon yellow band-aid.

After everything was over the medicine was fully in Joseph's system and he was super happy.  See below:

Drugs in full effect and gash is cleaned and glued shut

The whole ER experience took only about 2 hours, which I think was super fast.  We got home around 3 or 3:30.  When I got home Samuel came up to me and pointed to the floor and said, "See Mom, this is where Joseph fell and cracked his head open."  Great!

Joseph ended up sleeping all night and is doing well today.  I gave him Advil when he woke up and I will give it to him again soon.  I want to try to keep his pain under control.  He is a trooper and so are all of us.  This is our first ER experience, but I am sure it won't be the last.  With three kids, I am sure we will be visiting again.  I am sure I will be getting lots more grey hairs and loosing more years off my life because of the stress.  The benefits of parenting.

I am done with drama.  Please everyone have at least two drinks for me.  I seriously have needed to drink the entire month of April and it looks like May is starting off that way too.

Happy Birthday Dad! and Sleepless nights

Happy Birthday to my wonderful Dad!  I realized that I need to start taking more pictures of the grandparents with the boys because I don't have any recent pictures.

Anyway, I wanted to wish my Dad a very happy birthday today.  We love him very much and can't wait to see him the end of this month.


On another note, last night I didn't get much sleep at all.  Samuel developed a cough yesterday and it just exploded yesterday evening and in the middle of the night.  He coughed like crazy and then around 3 am he called for me saying that he needed to come sleep with me.  I went in his room and he was burning hot.  He was still coughing but the cough had broken up a bit and the fever replaced it.  I gave him Advil and he drank water.  He asked if I would lay with him for a while.  You can't deny a sick kid their mommy.  He was miserable for about an hour and couldn't get comfortable.  Finally he turned over, faced me with his head touching mine and his legs draped over me and finally fell asleep.  I could tell when he finally passed out and his fever broke around the same time.  I finally slipped out of bed around 4:30.

I had a feeling when we were going to bed last night that it was going to be a long night, but I am already very tired.  I forgot to mention yesterday that even though this pregnancy is going great, I am having some insomnia.  I have a hard time falling asleep at night, but when I finally do I wake up every two hours to pee and normally I am wide awake around 2 am.  Then I finally fall asleep from 3 to 6.  That is usually my best 3 hours.  So last night was difficult because I was in Samuel's room during my normal sleeping time.

I am drinking my coffee (and yes I do drink caffeinated coffee while I am pregnant.  I couldn't survive the days without it.  Actually just in the last week I have been able to drink it again.  The beginning of this pregnancy I had serious aversions to coffee and now my ability to drink it is back).  Hopefully I will survive the day and not get too annoyed with the kids, since I am functioning on about 4 hours of sleep.

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Catch up - Earth Friendly

When I don't post for a while I feel like there is so much to catch up on.  I promised a picture of Joseph with his blankie.  He is becoming increasingly more obsessed with it everyday.  I have decided he is not allowed to take it when we leave the house.  I don't want to get into a fight with him later about it, so we are starting now.  

Here are the boys playing hide and seek in Samuel's bed.  Joseph is also crazy about Samuel's bed.  He wants to get in whenever he can.  Luckily Samuel doesn't mind.  Samuel doesn't understand why Joseph won't lay still and try to take a nap with him.  One of these days.

Baby front:  I am 18 weeks tomorrow.  I started to feel the baby about 2 weeks ago, but only at night.  I think I am too busy during the day to think about whether I am feeling movement.  At night when I am relaxing it really goes crazy.  I was craving chocolate milk two night ago and I drank a small glass.  Either the baby loved it or hated it, I am not sure but it kicked and went nuts.  I felt terrible after drinking it.  I have always had a little bit of lactose intolerance, but I guess I am going to try to stay away from milk because I felt really really sick after drinking it.  I bought some Almond milk so we will see where that takes us.

I developed a big varicose vein when I was pregnant with Joseph and it has exploded with this pregnancy.  It is on my upper right inner thigh.  It is huge and it hurts a little bit.  As soon as I get back into shape after this next baby, I am going to have to have surgery to fix it.

I am starting to get bigger and bigger.  It seems like I am growing everyday.  I am starting to wear only maternity clothes.  This pregnancy by far is my best.  I am not feeling terrible and I am only really tired at night.  I am trying to be positive and enjoy every moment because this will be my last.


Earth Friendly Front:

Since we moved into our new house I have been trying desperately to teach the boys to be less wasteful. The amount of paper towels and toilet paper we used to go through was disgusting.  We bought terry cloth towels to clean up messes, dish towels to clean off the counters and tables and we are using cloth napkins instead of paper napkins or paper towels.  So far things have been going really well.  Samuel has barely asked for paper towels and I am feeling really good about utilizing all of our cloth substitutes.  I do laundry about once a week to clean all the cloth items.  Overall I really like the switch.

We are also starting to compost.  I got a stainless steel counter composter for all of our scraps (you can purchase it anywhere, but a lot of discount websites have them on sale.  I see them on The Foundry quite frequently).

 Then last weekend, Dave bought me my outdoor composting tumbler.  It was a pain to put together (took Dave several hours), but it is supposed to be easy and fast to use.  They say if it is in the sunlight and you fill it properly you can have working compost within 3 weeks.  I only did one dump of my indoor bucket so far.  I need to add the organic top soil and some hay and then hopefully things will start working.

 I have wanted to compost for a while, but we didn't want to start a garden at our old place because we knew we were going to move eventually.  As soon as we moved into our new house I wanted to get started.  I have to say that I feel like I have been extremely wasteful.  The amount of stuff that you can compost and not just through in your garbage is amazing.  I love the feeling of being about to utilize scraps and put it towards healthy vegetables we are going to start to grow.

In a few weeks, Dave is going to build me an elevated garden.  I bought a book and just got it in the mail yesterday.  I am going to get all of the great tips and then Dave will put it together.  I can't wait to start gardening and I think it will be a lot of fun for the boys to help out with too.  I am planning to grow veggies and herbs.  I know I want to grow basil, cilantro, rosemary and thyme.  Anyone have suggestions on veggies?  The book I bought gives lots of suggestions, but I want to know what you have done and what has worked.  I am so excited.  I will keep everyone updated on our progress.

Need to be productive

I have taken off the last few days of all house things.  I have been burnt out on unloading boxes.  However today I am feeling like I am ready to be productive again.  I am taking a little time now while the boys are asleep to relax and watch a little Bethany Ever After.

A few things:

Joseph has become obsessed in the last two or three weeks with his blankies.  We have always had about four or five small little blankets in his bed with him and he never cared about them.  Then all of the sudden the last few weeks he can't go anywhere without his little blue soft blanket.  He has to be squeezing it when he goes to bed and wakes up clutching it.  It is really cute.  I will get a good picture and post it soon.

I made this delicious recipe about a week ago.  I pulled it out of a magazine and it was wonderful.  It is completely vegetarian.  Dave loved it too.  It says that it serves 4 to 6, but I think it serves more like 8 to 10.  Just a warning, it does take some time to prepare.  The chopping of all the veggies and sauteing of everything takes a while, so you need at least a few hours to prepare.

Caserola Milanese

Polenta


6 cups    water
2 cups    yellow cornmeal
2 oz        butter
salt and freshly ground black pepper taste
2 oz       grated Parmesan

Filling


3 cloves   garlic, minced
4 cups      chopped onion
3 Tbsp     olive oil
2     carrots, diced
3  celery ribs, diced
1/3 cup   fresh basil
2 tsp dried oregano
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
3 cups  diced eggplant
1 1/2 cups diced zucchini
1  bell pepper, diced
1 1/2 cups canned plum tomatoes
3 Tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
3 cups fresh mozzarella, shredded

Preparation - Polenta


Bring water to a boil and gradually add cornmeal in a thin stream, stirring rapidly.  While continuing to stir, add butter, salt and pepper.  Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes (it didn't take this long at all, just watch it), stirring often.  When the polenta mixture has thickened, add Parmesan.  Pour mixture into a buttered 12 inch casserole dish and let cool.  Refrigerate.

Preparation - Filling


Preheat over to 350 degrees.  Saute garlic and onion in oil until translucent.  Add carrots, celery, basil, oregano, salt and pepper and continue to cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until carrots are bright orange.  Add eggplant and saute for 5 minutes.  Add zucchini and bell pepper, cooking until tender.  Add tomatoes, tomato paste and red wine.  Simmer for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan.

To Assemble


Spoon filling evenly over cooled polenta, top with mozzarella and bake 45 minutes to 1 hour, until cheese begins to brown.  Cool for 15 minutes before serving.

New House, Fun Times, Easter and Silver Stallion

We have been busy busy around here.  Forgot to say, but Joseph started walking as soon as we moved into the house.  It took him a long time (14 months) before he started walking, but he hasn't stopped.  he makes laps around our island.  I think he may be a natural soccer player because any ball that is near him he has to kick.  He is pretty athletic already.  

On Friday we bought a new mini van.  We got the Honda Odyssey Tour Elite.  It is absolutely awesome.  I have nicknamed it the Silver Stallion, but I am thinking that sounds a little naughty which may be a good and bad thing.  I mean I have to have some excitement in my life since I have now moved into the mother mobile.  It is a great vehicle.  I feel really comfortable driving it and I think it looks great.  There is a picture below.  

Also on Friday, we got the last of our stuff from storage.  We also got our rugs and breakfast table.  Things are starting to come together.  I am slowly feeling like this is home.  It is has just been such a disaster that it hadn't yet felt homey to me.  I think in the next week or so it is going to start looking and feeling great.  

My mom came in town on Thursday night because we were supposed to go to Kansas City to celebrate the end of Passover with my family there.  However, with the crazy weather that came through on Friday night and the potential for more storms we were a little worried about going and driving in non-stop rain. Then I woke up on Saturday morning and I felt terrible.  I was having serious stomach pains, nausea and my sides were killing me.  It felt like someone was jabbing knives in my right side.  We decided it was best not to go and my mom took the train to Kansas City.  I really wanted to spend some time with family in Kansas City and I am really sad we didn't go, but I also was in no shape to be driving.  By Sunday night I started to feel better and today I am in no pain at all.  I guess I am about to grow again, which is great because I am already feeling huge.  

We had a great Easter.  Samuel had three Easter egg hunts and got tons of candy, which I promptly packed away today while he was at school.  Out of sight out of mind right.  Let's just hope that works with Samuel.  He doesn't need all that sugar.  

I better go.  Joseph is standing at my legs screaming because he wants me to pick him up.  Enjoy the pictures.

Joseph loves the drawer with all our kitchen towel. 

As soon as we moved into our new house, Joseph started walking.  He hasn't stopped since then. 

We finally set up the castle that Justin and Charisa got the boys for X-Mas.  They love it.  Actually I think Joseph loves it more.  He plays in it everyday.  

My little niece, Haidyn.  I watched her for a little bit last week and then today.  She is so cute.  Big huge blue eyes.  I love her lots, but it has taken Joseph some time to get used to not getting all the attention.  

Savta came for a little visit and Joseph was super cuddly.  

The Easter Bunny came to our house.  Samuel was the happy cute bunny.

Joseph was the mean possessed bunny.

Samuel thought it was fun to run all around the house because he didn't want us to take a good picture.  

More running

Now to the fireplace.

and off the fireplace...

Easter Day with their cousin Haidyn.  

Samuel loves squeezing everyone.  I think everyone's face in this picture is hilarious.

The only family picture we could get.  Not very good!

My new Silver Stallion.   I am loving it!!!

Surprise

For many of you this is not breaking news, but I needed to post new changes in our lives and I figured it was about time to announce that we are expecting baby #3.  I am 15 and a half weeks pregnant.  Will be 16 weeks on Friday.  Time has really flown by.  I was only sick with this baby for 3 weeks, so I feel really really lucky.  It has been pretty easy and most of the time I completely forget that I am even pregnant.  Well, until this week.  My belly completely popped out over the weekend.  I am clearly pregnant now.

I figured for documentation purposes I should give you background information and the story before I completely forget (I am forgetting everything now.  My short term memory is gone.  The baby is sucking brain cells like crazy.  Good thing this is our last one or I would really be in trouble).

Pregnancy History:  As many of you know, we had a lot of trouble getting pregnant with Samuel and additional problems getting pregnant with Joseph.  Some parts are graphic, just to worn you.

I got pregnant for the first time in October 2005.  I had a miscarriage the end of December 2005.  We thought it was going to be just a normal miscarriage because I had all the normal activity that occurs with a miscarriage.  However in early January 2006, I woke up one morning and started pretty much hemorrhaging.  Since the bleeding wouldn't stop, my doctor sent me directly to the ER and I was there all day.  Basically, I didn't have a full miscarriage in December.  There was still stuff leftover and my body was trying to get rid of everything inside.  They thought I was going to have an emergency D & C, but by late afternoon the ultrasound showed that nothing was left in my uterus.  From January 2006 through June of 2007 I had three Hysterosalphingographys, which show if there is a blockage of my fallopian tubes.  The first one showed that I had a blockage.  Then I had outpatient surgery because I had a mass in my uterus that was blocking my fallopian tubes.  The second one was done to see if they had removed the blockage, which they didn't really.  So I had another outpatient surgery that they blasted liquid through my uterus and fallopian tubes to open them up.  The last Hysterosalphingograph was to confirm that indeed everything was flowing well.

After all those surgeries and procedures, I started clomid and still couldn't get pregnant.  Then they decided to do clomid with Artificial Insemination, which luckily for us worked on the first try.  That was our story with Samuel.

When Samuel was 6 months old we decided to start trying for baby number 2 because we were worried about how long it might take us to get pregnant again.  After 6 months of trying with no luck, I went back to our fertility specialist.  I had another Hysterosalphingograph, which said everything was flowing fine, so we started back up on Clomid and did Artificial Insemination and got pregnant again.  It took us 9 months to get pregnant with Joseph.

Now for the new pregnancy.  Dave and I had talked about the possibility of having three, but we wanted to wait a little while before making our final decision.  We were being really careful about having unprotected sex.  We had said in the event we wanted to try again for a third, we would try to do it without help from the fertility specialist and if it happened on its own it was meant to be.  We wanted to wait until we were settled in our new house and we wanted to go on a few trips just the two of us in 2011 and I was planning to run the St. Louis Half-Marathon in April.  We had already planned two trips, one to Miami in January and the second to Vegas in March.  We were planning in the late summer - early fall to go to California to do winery tours.  We finally got our first trip to Miami in without the boys and had a wonderful time.  We were eating and drinking, staying up late and sleeping in.  It was awesome.

When we got back from Miami I started back to running and then got a terrible cold and was sick for over a week.  When I finally felt better to run again, I started having terrible side pains (I also got terrible side pains when I was pregnant with Joseph).  I thought it was strange and I figured I was just cramping and getting ready to start my period.  After a few days of continued pain when I ran, I decided to take a pregnancy test just to confirm that I am about to start my period.  Then the biggest shocker hit, the pregnancy test had two solid pink lines.  I had just gone for a run, peed on the stick and jumped in the shower.  I was totally expecting to get out and see one line, but I was dumbfounded when I saw two.  I literally started shaking.  I could not believe it.  I texted Dave and told him to call me when he went to a back private office so we could talk.  Of course he calls me from his desk.  I didn't know what to do.  I thought he might freak out or pass out or who knows when I told him, but I told him over the phone and his reaction was so much better then mine.



Anyway, now I am almost 16 weeks in and things are looking great.  I have another appointment in May with my doctor and then we have the BIG ultrasound.  Sorry to say, but we are not finding out the sex of this baby either.  This is our last real surprise.  I really don't care what we have next.  I will be happy with any healthy baby.

I will keep you updated on my progress.  I do have to inform you that the huge varicose vein I got in my leg when I was pregnant with Joseph has once again exploded during the pregnancy.  It is disgusting an ugly and will be a great addition to my bathing suit this summer.  I will just be one really attractive beached whale at the pool.

I am off to pick Samuel up from school.

Happy Passover and Happy Easter!

Emerging in more ways then one

I am finally emerging from the moving boxes I have been under.  We moved two weeks ago on Monday.  Moving to this house was probably the most stressful terrible experiences I have had in my life so far.  I have no idea why it totally pushed Dave and I over the edge but it did.  It was terrible.  So terrible that I found my first grey hair the other night.  It was solid white and it was right in front.  This move aged me at least 10 years.  I am hoping to get those years back but finally starting to relax in our new house.

I had no idea we had so much shit.  When we had decided to put our house on the market again, last August (that was before we decided to build and didn't put it on the market) we got a POD and filled it up with miscellaneous shit from our house.  Then once we closed on our new house Dave and I started to move smaller stuff over.  I probably did at least 8 car loads myself and Dave probably did 4.  I thought we had moved a significant amount.  I was totally wrong.

We hired Dielman Moving to move us.  The actual movers were awesome, but the management was absolutely terrible.  They treated us terribly and I ended up calling one of the head managers and completely bitching him out.  We will never use them again even though they were the cheapest and the movers were awesome.  The customer service was beyond disgusting and I never want to deal with them again.  I guess it doesn't matter because we are never moving again.

We ended up having three moving guys and one truck, then they realized that we were going to need more then one truck and it was getting later in evening and they thought it would be best if a few more movers came and helped get everything packed and taken to our new house.  The movers finally left around 8 pm.  We were all exhausted.

Then the real madness began.  The unpacking of the boxes and organization of everything was overwhelming.  I am still not completely unpacked or organized.  It just seems like the days fly by and I just barely touch things.  My goal is to work on the basement in the next few weeks.

I know I am a little nuts when it comes to organization, but it is driving me crazy to have clutter.  We still haven't gotten our POD back and I want it soon.  We don't have a microwave right now and some furniture.  I think I will feel better when we have everything in our house.

We just put our other house on the market.  That will be a relief once that is sold as well.  Dave and I spent two weeks cleaning, painting and clearing out as much as we could out of the old house.  We still have stuff in the garage, but we are just going to wait until it is sold before we clear all that out.

I promise to post pictures soon, but right now things are just so messy.  We are also getting our new kitchen table on Wednesday and hopefully all our new rugs by Friday.  Once those come it, things will start feeling and looking much better.

I am absolutely exhausted.  I am trying to catch up on as much sleep as possible, but I am having a very hard time sleeping.  Stress really interferes with my sleep.  Hopefully I will be posting happy pictures soon.