The silver lining

I hardly ever get sick. In fact I have never used a sick day at work for actually being sick*. Yes, I get colds every now and again and my allergies bother me from time to time, but I never get really sick. Never had the flu, never had strep throat, I don't even remember being sick as a kid except when I got the chicken pox. But now I am sick, but on the road to recovery. It started Thursday night, I felt achy and tired, but attributed it to a hard workout at the gym and went to bed early at 9. (that is early at our house) Friday morning I woke up feeling much worse, Headache, fever, nausea, weakness and body aches. I slept as much as Anthony would allow for, hoping to feel better before work. I only had a 4 hour shift from 3-7p, but I was dreading it. By the time I realized I was probably too sick to go to work, it was too late to call in, so I suffered through it. Lucky for me (not really) it was a day at the ER where all the frequent fliers came in for stupid stuff, and people who have terrible veins for starting IV's. I was so annoyed, I just wanted to go in the room, get my stuff done and get out so I could sit down, but when it takes 3 tries to get an IV it's a little frustrating, for myself and the patient I imagine. It's also annoying when you know you are sicker than they are and all they want is a fix of Demerol or Dilaudid or whatever their drug of choice is.
Anyway, let me get to the silver lining part, today I got on the scale and for the first time in 56 weeks, I finally have reached my prepregnancy weight. It only took me 16 weeks to lose all 37 pounds I had gained in the 40 weeks I was pregnant. It's a lot easier to admit how much I gained now that I have lost it. Actually I lost the first 20 pounds the first week, so it has taken 15 weeks to lose the other 17. I guess I will have to remember how hard it was to lose for the next time around (if and when), and be a bit more careful. Although I am a bit perplexed because I still have jeans that I'm pretty sure don't fit me. I guess they must have been my skinny jeans back in the day. I'm sure I can kiss those goodbye. It was hard enough getting where I am now. And I do realize that as soon as I am feeling better and actually start eating again, I will put those last few pounds back on, but I'll deal with that later.

*I have called in sick to work before on rare occasion, but never because I was sick.

If this doesn't make you smile...

I don't know what will. I only wish I had the ability to make everyone so happy. Try not to pay too close attention to me or my big foot, I didn't realize Todd was recording us, I had to edit out a few embarassing parts of me making a fool of myself for the sake of a good laugh.

And now some of Anthony's favorite things

Taking baths is hit and miss for Anthony, meaning sometimes it's a hit, and he loves it, smiling and laughing all along. Usually it becomes a miss when I pour water over his face (I heard it helps him get used to the water and makes swimming lessons easier later on.) But then again sometimes he doesn't mind the water in his face. He is pretty good about getting dressed in the morning now too. Used to be that diaper changes and getting dressed really upset him. Now he is more likely to get upset if he has a dirty diaper. This is a play gym that his Auntie Lisa gave him. He just recently started taking an interest in it. It used to hold his interest for only a few minutes, but now he will lay there and look at and play with the toys hanging down for much longer periods of time (which is what he is doing now actually). If he can't reach the toy he wants to look at, he will scoot himself until he can reach it. In this picture he has pushed himself off of the boppy pillow to play with the hanging donkey.
The little singing doggy bouncer seat is still a big hit with Anthony. He loves to watch it sing and dance. He starts laughing and wiggling when it's on. I have tried to get him laughing on video, but he is on to me, and every time I get the flip out, he stops doing it.
Its always a sure thing to put him in the air and shake him. Or play elevator. It really gets him laughing, even when he is super grumpy.

Other things that are a hit is his Baby Einstein videos, his pacifier, and he has recently started taking interest in reading books.

Things that are usually always a miss are his swing (sadly) and tummy time. We're working on the tummy time thing though. My sister Rachael has me worried that I am prolonging a developmental milestone (of rolling over) by not putting on his tummy.

Open House/Show and Tell/Show me Yours

I seem to have lost my ablity to write a decent post lately. Or maybe it's the lack of time to write a good post. It just seems so much easier to put some pictures up and call it good. This is a post I've been working on for a week now, but it seems that everytime I get a spare block of time to work on it, usually Anthony is napping (like now) and he will inevitably wake up before I manage to finish, (probably will happen this time too). Rachael and CM both did a post about open house/favorite things and I sort of liked the idea, so I am copying it. I of course had to wait till my housekeeper came before I could take the pictures, which is another reason this post has taken so long. There are actually lots of things I love about my house, but here are just a few of them.


My hardwood floors.

This is a before picture of our floors. They are very old and covered in dust and dirt, I was so surprised to see them refinished, I had no idea what was under all that dirt and grime.

I think they turned out great, they are a bit squeaky in spots, but other than that, I love them. According to the guys who refinished them, some people pay a lot of money to have new wood floors that look like old wood floors.

Here is another picture with a few of my favorite things, first of all I really like this chair, it is one of my favorite place to sit, it is big enough for me, Anthony and Brewster to sit in together and watch TV. Todd and I picked out the furniture together and then I went back the next day with my sister Francie to buy it. Todd didn't want me to get the ottoman, he thought it was too big for the room. Truthfully it is, but Francie talked me into buying it anyway, insisting that not only could we make it fit in the room, but that a comfy chair is so much comfyier if you can put your feet up. She was right about both. Todd wasn't too happy with me when they delivered the furniture a few months later. Oops, somehow I had forgotten to mention to him that I had added on the ottoman to the order.

The mirror behind the chair was an impulse buy, with no place in my house to put it in mind when I bought it, but I really like the look of it in the living room. As an added bonus it is a skinny mirror, you know the kind that makes you look 10 pounds less than you really are.

The curtians you see are another of my favorite things in my house, actually I love all the curtians in my house, they were custom made by my mom. She made them all without patterns too, I just showed her a picture of what I wanted, she took a few measurements, we went to the fabric store and she went home with a lot of work to do. The next time she came for a visit, she brought all the curtians with her ready to hang.

My stove is another favorite, I really enjoy cooking on it. It is also great for canning because the canner pot is so big and heavy, it's nice to not have to worry about breaking the stove top. I wish I did more of both, cooking and canning. Unfortunately, I don't have much counter space, so when Rachael and I make our spagetti sauce in the summer we do it at her house because she has the bigger kitchen, but her stove is a smooth glass top and I always worry that the heavy canner is going to break it. So far it hasn't (knocking on wood).

This piece of furniture used to be a room divider in the house between the kitchen and the dining room that you could access from both sides. It went from floor to ceiling so the top had to be cut off to move it. It was removed during the remodel to open up the living space a bit, but I wanted to save it and use it somehow. It works great in our office. You can stuff a lot of junk in those cupboards and drawers. One side had solid doors, and the other side had glass doors, I liked the look of the glass doors better, but that would not allow me to use the cabinet as planned. (to stuff junk in it) I wish I could take the credit for refinishing it myself. I tried, and gave up, it was too big a job for me, so I had it refinished by a professional. It turned out great.
This is what it looked like before it was refinished. We used the top part that was cut off too but it goes with a picture of some of the things I don't like about my house so I am not showing it. It sits below the TV that is mounted on the wall and the wires hang down and show. Todd has yet to hide them in the wall. If we ever get them tucked away I will show a picture.

Now it's your turn, show me some pictures of some of your favorites in your house. Don't forget to leave me a comment so I can go read your post.

Happy Easter

I bought this new Easter outfit for Anthony last weekend when I went shopping with Rachael so she could buy shoes for her kids at Stride Rite. I found a cute pair of shoes for Anthony too, even though I wasn't looking for any, and then I had to buy an outfit to go with them, new matching argyle socks and all. Last night I threw the outfit in the wash so it would be ready for him to wear today and when I was sorting through the dryer for the clothes and I couldn't one of the socks. I wasn't planning on folding laundry then, so I kept tossing the clothes around in the dryer looking for that sock. I ended up pulling everything out one by one and still no sock. I was so annoyed. I used to joke that dryers ate socks, but I was beginning to think it really did. So I finally took all the clothes out and folded them. Still no sock. Then I took each piece of clothing, unfolded it, shook it out, and folded it again. Still no sock. Then I picked up the crib sheet and it was tucked in the corner of the sheet. So I guess the dryer didn't eat the sock and I got the laudry folded.

Auntie Francie

Auntie Nay Nay

Picture time

Here are some recent photos of Anthony in case your wondering what he looks like these days. I noticed I've talked a lot about him recently, but haven't shown any recent pictures. These were all taken this week.

Anthony can't stay sitting on the couch, it's too slippery, every time I try to take a picture of him he slides down before I can snap it. Here he is this morning, watching Baby Einstein
I love this little onesie
Anthony has recently discovered his hand tastes good. I can't keep it out of his mouth.
He sits better in this chair. Here he is getting ready for a bath.
Close up
This is what we do when Anthony is fussy, put him in the air and shake him. He laughs every time. We call it shakin out the grumps. (Don't worry we don't shake hard)

BabyWise I am becoming

I starting reading up on becoming BabyWise yesterday and I think Anthony knew I was on to something. Even though we hadn't actually started the BabyWise schedule. (I wanted to read the book first) I was trying to spread out feeding to every 3 hours and get 3 naps in. I don't think he wants me to read the book, because he was a perfect little boy yesterday. If I could hit repeat play* on yesterday and do it again day after day, I would and I wouldn't need the BabyWise book. He got all 3 naps in and went down without a fuss for his naps, 2 out of the 3 he was awake when I layed him in his crib and there was no crying. Unfortunately today is not as good as yesterday and thus we have started a trial BabyWise scheduled day.

Grandma J got to do the first 4 hours of the morning since I worked 3a-7a last night. When we got home we played for a few minutes, then it was time for his first afternoon nap. I put him in his crib and he began to cry right away. I left the room anyway and kept myself busy for the next 15 minutes** doing laundry. I turned on the washer and the bathroom fan to drown out the crying while I folded clothes. When I finished I listened outside his door and he was still crying, I came downstairs because Todd had stopped in for a minute. (Bad timing, I thought for sure he would screw everything up and go pick him up) When I told him it was tough love time and that Anthony was crying himself to sleep, he said he couldn't hear him crying, so I went back upstairs and to my surprise he wasn't crying. I wish I had a Staples that was easy button to push.

I must say I am really surprised I like what the BabyWise book says to do. I really didn't want to read the book because I talked to people who used it like the lady I met in Florida on the beach. I remember her recommending the book and telling me how great it was. But I also remember her telling me how they would carry the baby around or push her in her stroller screaming because she was hungry but they were trying to stretch out her feed times. It sounded so awful that I was completely turned off by the book. To my surprise the book doesn't actually say to do that, the BabyWise schedule is way more flexible than I thought it was going to be. I really liked the books explanation about being flexible. It describes flexibility as a thing with a particular shape that can bend and then return to it's original shape. Once you establish the shape of your routine you can bend and flex it every now and then and baby will bounce back to the original shape easily. But first we have to make our shape, which is where we are now.

I'll be sure and give a little update in a week or so on Anthony's progress. If it doesn't work than I will have to resort to Natalie's suggestion and just let him cry until Todd gives in and rocks him to sleep.

*The first time I put on a Baby Einstein movie for Anthony the menu gave the option of play, or repeat play. I thought to myself, what kind of mother would put a movie on repeat play? The answer is... one just like me. Anthony LOVES these movies and in my defense, they are really short, so watching it twice isn't really as bad as it sounds, and they are good for him.

** I say 15 minutes, but only because it felt like 15 minutes, I didn't actually look at my watch and time it. When I am at work and a patient comes in to the ER because they had a seizure I always ask the witness how long it lasted and whatever time they tell me I always have to clarify by saying, You know this because you looked at your watch and timed it, or because it felt like that many minutes. Usually it's the later, and it wasn't anywhere near as long as they thought it was.

Anthony, D'Arcy & Brewster watching Baby Einstein

Slideshow

I want to put this slideshow on the sidebar, but I can't figure out how to do it. Until I do, I'll leave it here.

I am not Baby Wise...

But I'm trying.

Is this not the cutest little bottom you've ever seen?

(not counting your own kid of course, since I know everyone thinks their kid is the cutest)

Thanks to everyone for your advice. I am beginning to realize that a schedule is the best way to go. I work such odd shifts myself that I thought it would be hard to put Anthony on a schedule and stick to it. Plus I figured if we weren't on a "schedule" my baby would be more flexible about being able to go with the flow. Rather than be a mess if he missed his nap, or something like that.

Today I tried to put Anthony down for a nap while he was awake and see if he could fall asleep on his own. I was only going to wait 5 minutes before going to him, but after 2 minutes my husband was giving me a huge guilt trip about letting him cry. I explained what I was trying to do, and that I was going to go in there in a couple minutes if he didn't settle down. He says "Do you want him to change his own diapers and feed himself too? He's a baby!" He then went in to him, picked him up and rocked him to sleep.
I don't like to hear him cry either, but Todd can't handle it at all. So I guess that is something I will have to work on with Anthony when his Daddy is at work.

Do you like the sepia tone better or the color version up top? I'm thinking about framing one of them for my bathroom wall above the bathtub.

Calling all moms

I need some advice. We are once again having sleep issues in our house. I can't blame Anthony for all of it. We have taken him on 2 trips in the past month and I know that it has messed up what little schedule we had going before our first trip.

Here is what is happening, his naps are short during the day, usually lasting only an hour at most. We're working on it, and I can deal with that. Our biggest problem is going to bed at night. Or I should say staying in bed at night. He actually falls asleep really fast, around 9 pm we start by rocking him to sleep in the kitchen in front of the exhaust fan and he falls asleep within 5 minutes. Then we tip toe up the stairs ever so gently as to not make the wooden steps creak, lay him in his bed, and tip toe out the door. We have a fan CD playing in the room for white noise and we keep a small dim light on in the room. Within 5 minutes he is awake and crying again. We go back in to check on him, put the pacifier back in his mouth and try to sooth him in bed without getting him up. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't then we're back to the kitchen to start all over. He will again quickly fall back asleep if we pick him up, so I know he is tired, he just can't seem to stay asleep. Surely he hasn't figured out how to manipulate us already. This goes on for anywhere between 1 to 2 hours each night. Rarely do we put him to bed and have him stay asleep for the night.

I know you are supposed to put them to sleep awake, but if we do that he will cry, and work himself up. When he cries if we don't go to him right away and console him, he again works himself into a fit of crying. I am sure we must be doing something wrong here, so I am asking for suggestions here. We have read the books and now I want tried and tested advice from moms. I think I already know that I need to get him to fall asleep on his own in his crib, but I don't know how to do that. Suggestions welcome.

And now I have to go because it's my turn to go up there now.

Our trip to Oklahoma

Family:
It was great seeing all the family, the first day we got there we went to Dad and Barbara's house, it hasn't changed a bit. Well except that dad almost has the fireplace finished he started building 8 years ago. The last time I was there Barbara told me if it wasn't finished in a year she would divorce him, 8 years later they are still married and the fireplace is still not finished. I guess some things never change. My dad has always been a bit pokey about getting things done. When I asked him about it he said, I either don't have the time or I don't have the money to work on it. Maybe he will get it done by this summer.
Then we went over to my aunt Mone's house and visited for a while. Her house is just the same too, she still had the beads hanging from the bedroom door jams that you have to part to walk through. Her grandson BJ lives with her now. Brandy her other granddaughter was there visiting coincidentally (not because of the funeral) and she has a 1 year old with another on the way. Her little guy is a hefty 30 pounds. He makes Rachael's boys look skinny. Aunt Bugs apparently comes over there daily with her two dogs. If it storms she spends the night. She is still wrinkly as ever and just as skinny. She said she weighs a whopping 85 pounds. I think her 2 little chiwawa's eat all her food because they are the fattest little dogs I've ever seen.
Ryan and Lisa and their kids got in late that night and we went to Denny's for dinner. Then early that morning Ryan and Dad went to Oklahoma City to pick up Grandma Annie and bring her to Muskogee for the funeral. She is pretty much the same, still dishin it out, and telling jokes. I think she is quite a bit shorter though, she is starting to look like great grandma did. She was hard to drag away for the night but we finally convinced her to stay in the hotel and we'd take her back the next day. She was worried to death about her dogs being away from her for so long. She wouldn't tell me exactly how many animals she has, apparently it is top secret. Veli assured her they would be just fine. She liked my eggplant shirt (the farm logo one) so before we left I opened her suitcase to sneak it in there for her to find when she gets home and I saw she had snatched all the cups and toiletry samples from the hotel. Again some things never change.
The funeral was later that day, and we got to see a lot more of the family. Kim brought her 5 kids. But surprisingly she was very normal and the only thing countrified about her was her 5 kids. (sorry mom) She told me everyone always asks her if she knows why she keeps getting kids, she got tired of that question so she started tell people "yes, that's my favorite part!" I love that answer. She says it shuts them up pretty quick.
Charlies wife and daughter flew in from Spain for the funeral. They were very friendly but the language barrier made it difficult to talk much. The daughter Arrianna is definitely Charlies daughter, with her blue eyes and blond hair she looks a lot like him I think. I heard she wants to come to school in America next year to learn English better. I have her email address and I hope to get to know her better. I also think it would be a great opportunity for her to come to America and learn English. I would like to offer to let her live with Todd and I. Todd seems open to the idea, so we will see what happens. He also likes that we have family in Spain. He sees that as a vacation opportunity and wants to go visit them there.
The funeral was sad, he had a large church family that came to the funeral and many of them had tears in their eyes, I truly felt they all knew and loved Charlie. He was hard not to like, even with all of his flaws. Here is a funny story about Charlie that if you knew him will make you smile. Apparently his neighbors were complaining that charlie had a lot of stuff around the yard that made it look sloppy, so one of them kindly asked him if he would clean it up. He very nicely said he would, and that day he made a pile in his front yard of all his junk and set it on fire. He was as ornery as they come. Here is his obituary if you want to read it.
The next day we went to Oklahoma city to take my grandma home and out to lunch with Veli and Robert (my Aunt and cousin) before we left. We let them pick the restaurant and they picked Cici's pizza. They love that place, I can't for the life of me figure out why. Veli also made me some vegetarian egg rolls to take home with me. They are so good. After pizza we took them all home and headed for the airport.

Food:
This is what we ate the entire time we were in OK. Popeye's chicken, Quizno's, Denny's, Golden Corral, Cici's pizza. The best meal we ate the whole time we were there was the free continental breakfast at the hotel. I think if I ate at one more greasy food joint I was going to puke. I pretty much felt nauseated the whole time we were there.
I guess they like cheap food in Oklahoma, and buffets seem to be popular as well.
I told Todd that we hardly spent any money on food while we were there. He said, he would have gladly spent more money on food for a descent meal.

And that was our trip in a nutshell.

Also in case you didn't pick up on it, my family in OK is very country and simple. Aunt Bugs says everyone makes fun of Oklahoma, that were just a bunch of rednecks but she claims OK has more astronauts than any other state. I don't know if that's true or not, be she swears it is. I think what she was getting at was that just because your country doesn't mean your stupid.

I do know that Carrie Underwood (American Idol winner from season 4) is from Checotah, OK (the town my uncle Charlie lived it)

I also got a hold of some of my grandpa Chucks old pictures while I was there from when we were kids, I hope to post them soon. I need to find a scanner first.

Oklahoma Slideshow

To be continued... (I'm tired and going to bed, will finish this post tomorrow, but I want to publish it now so you guys can at least see the pictures)

We're home

Finally, we're home. We got in last night or I should say this morning at 12:30 and I was supposed to be at work this morning at 7am. Oh how I wanted to call in sick today. But thankfully I did call and they said I could come in at 9am instead of 7. So I got a couple hours extra sleep which was much needed. This weekend was packed full and I am so tired. I have lots to say and pictures to post which I am sure my sisters and mom are anxious to see. I hope I will have time and energy to do so tonight after I put Anthony to bed. And speaking of Anthony he was a perfect little traveler this time, no problems at all, not even with the airline. My grandma Annie says it's because he gets milk from a contented cow! Then she of course corrected herself and said contented mom. At 77 she can still dish it out.

Well I really gotta run to work, but here is one picture for now, it's of Shannon and I with our Uncle Charlie* at my Grandpa Chucks house.


*Charlie died 3/4/08 in a house fire.

Flying again

Well we are going to give the whole traveling thing another go around for a quick trip to Oklahoma for my uncles funeral. Hopefully this little weekend trip will go smooth now that we know exactly what to expect as far as traveling with an infant. It will be a quick trip with lots of people to see while we're there, hopefully Anthony can keep up with it all. Now if I can just get my hands on a red sticker that says my car seat is FAA approved we'll be all set. Oh and we're flying United, not AirTran in case you were wondering.

Sleep Baby Sleep (pretty please.)

UGH, I just posted a whole semi-long post about the sleep issues we've been having lately and somehow blogger deleted it when I hit publish. So I give up, maybe tomorrow because I need to go to sleep now.

The story of 2 epidurals

December 7 seems like such a long time ago. I can't believe my little baby is getting so big. Yet in another few days he will be 3 months old. We've gone from counting the days, then counting the weeks, and now we're on to counting the months. (in regards to Anthony's age). The medical bills are still trickling in, I've yet to get the BIG one, but today I got my bill for my epidural. I have been wondering about this one, because I had to have two epidurals on that lovely day in which Anthony was born. I got my first one before I even needed it, the nurses told me it was a good time to get it because then I would have a pain free labor (yeah right.) I really think it was just a convenient time for the anesthesiologist. Either way I got my epidural around 11am. As soon as it was in and I was getting my pain meds, my legs felt heavy and numb so I know it was working at one point. 4 or 5 hours later I was trying to watch a movie (Music and Lyrics) with Todd and my sister Rachael and my back started to hurt really bad. I kept changing my position and nothing would help, I finally told my sister about my back pain and she told me to use the pain button to give myself a bolus dose, so I did, 3 times over the next half hour and it didn't help, it kept getting worse and worse to the point that they called the anesthesiologist to come and check it. He asked me a few questions, I told him my back was hurting really bad, he asked if it was on and off (like contractions I imagine is what he was getting at) and I said no, it was constant. Then he asked me if I could feel any pain in my stomach when I was contracting? NO. He then proceeded to explain the procedure of an epidural to me and that they use a big needle which can cause pain afterwards... I told him I was pretty sure this wasn't needle insertion pain. He tried turning up the pain meds, but nothing worked. So finally my sister offered to rub my back and that is when she discovered the bandage from my epidural was wet. I guess somehow the epidural came out and the medicine was going into the gauze bandage instead of me. By this time I was in so much pain I was crying and my blood pressure was 170 something systolic. The doctor was on the phone talking to another anesthesiologist and they decided to take it out and put in a new one, fine I don't care, just hurry up and do it already. But no, he wasn't going to do it, he was going to have another doctor come in and do it. I don't know why, I didn't care why I just wanted them to hurry up and do it. Finally I got my second epidural and they gave me so much pain medicine that I was comfortable enough to take a short nap. When I woke up I couldn't feel anything, my legs were so heavy I couldn't move them. I think they went a little overboard with the meds the second time around, but I wasn't going to complain. I just wanted to make sure I didn't run out at a crucial time. I didn't realize that the epidural only helps with contractions and isn't much help when it comes time to push.
The hospital I was at was out of network for my insurance, I knew this all along but wanted to go to the hospital my sisters OB/GYN office uses and the one closest to my house, so I knew I would be paying a high coinsurance. 40% to be exact. I also know an epidural cost around $1000 so my portion would be $400. A price I was definitely willing to pay. But when I had to get 2 epidurals, I wondered if I would then have to pay for 2, even though I don't think it was my fault the first one came out. At the moment I of course didn't care, but later I thought that if they tried to make me pay for 2 it wasn't going to be fair. All this time I've been wondering about that bill.
The verdict is in, the bill came in the mail today and it's good news. The total charges were $900 and my insurance covered $867.73 of it. I only owe $32.27. I don't know how this happened but it was a very pleasant surprise. I'm so glad I didn't cheap out and try to do it natural just to save money.