Swine flu sucks...

This blows. My school district just closed down starting tomorrow and will supposedly be closed until Tuesday, May 11th. That means 6 days out.

I'm sure we are going to have to extend our school year an extra week or so to cover the time lost.

This whole situation sucks because we're closing on our house May 20 and moving out the 23rd and I was going to have to stay with my grandma until school got out the 5th of June. Now I'll probably have to be with her for 3 weeks.

The upside of this mess is that I'm going to San Antonio and spend the week with my husband. And also I don't have to take my darling child back home on a plane. Ahhh, the small things...

I must be crazy

Christian and I are flying to Houston tonight. We have scheduled Christian's party for tomorrow afternoon and I volunteered to fly instead of drive so I could help out my parent's with the preparations tonight. The last time I flew was in December and Christian was a terror. Now I know that tonight is going to be much worse. I just know. He's going to be antsy and wanted to be put down the whole time. Not fun. Thankfully, it's only an hour flight. Wish us luck!

Stats: Then and Now

April 29th, 2008:
Height: 20 3/4 inches
Weight: 8 lbs, 6oz

April 29th, 2009:
Height: 28 1/2 inches
Weight 20 lbs, 14 oz

What a difference a year makes!

I hate my ped

Yesterday was Christian's 12 month appointment. The appointment was scheduled for 5 pm.

I decided to arrive early at 4:30 because I had new insurance and wanted to give them time to process. Christian and I went to sit in the waiting area.

As soon as we sit down and Christian starts exploring, another woman in the waiting area lets me know that a kid JUST threw up on the floor where we were sitting. I immediately swoop baby up. And guess what happens when you pick up and newly walking toddler and want to carry him? Yep, the hysterics begin. He's crying and kicking and scratching.

That lasted for 30 minutes when they finally called me back at 5:00. We head back to the weighing room (stats later). After being weighed and measured, we go to another little sitting room and wait for an exam room.

Five minutes later another mother and toddler come in. He's a sick toddler. His mother just puts him down and he wanders to the play area and starts playing with all the toys where Christian was!!! WTF? I swoop him up again and hysterics start again! But I wasn't having Christian play in the same area where the other kid was playing. Seriously, that mother should have been carrying her son or containing him in some way. Don't just let him wonder over to my healthy child.

So I'm holding him...and holding him...and holding him....and holding him....until 6:05. By this point, I'm exhausted (I've already had a horrible day.) and my back is hurt and I'm just pissed. On a normal night, Christian would be eating dinner and settling down to some quiet playtime before bath. Not screaming in the doctor's office.

Finally, I just reached my breaking point. I walked out. At the front, the office manager (who happens to be the ped's wife), she asks me if everything's okay. I tell her no. I've been waiting for over an hour. I want another appointment where I won't have to go through this again. She offers no apologizes and no explanations. So we're scheduled for sometime next week. I'm not even sure what day. I already lost the appointment card. I'll just have to call them next week.

Seriously. Is this the way other peds operate? Thank goodness I'm moving and will be finding another ped. Next week's appt will be Christian's last with him.

Happy 1st Birthday!

A year ago today, I became a Mommy and my life changed dramatically.


Happy Birthday, Goobie!! You are the light of my life.


(Pictures to come this weekend. We're partying it up on Saturday.)

ENT Results...

...are perfectly normal. It must have been a bad test or bad behavior from my darling son. Whatever the case is, I'm beyond thankful. This is a huge load off my shoulders.

No news yet

We're still waiting for Christian's test results. I talked to a nurse today and she said that he hasn't had a chance to look over them yet.

I hate playing the waiting game.

Today's the day

Christian's second hearing test is in an hour. We kept him up last night until 11:30 and woke him up at 4:30. So hopefully he'll fall asleep during the test.

I'm going to have my phone glued to my hand until J calls me with the news. I've already got butterflies in my stomach.


Update: The test went well. Christian slept the whole time (thankfully). J and him here out in 2 hours. The ENT was going to call us late this afternoon or early tomorrow morning for the results. He didn't call today. So hopefully, we'll hear something tomorrow (pun not intended).

2 week ENT follow up

Today was Goobs's tube follow up with the ENT. After we checked in, he had a hearing test. He didn't like it. He kept squirming around and trying to pull the things from his ears and crying. The audiologist (is that what's she called?) said that she thought she got enough from him.

About 20 minutes later, our ENT and the audiologist come in and tell me that he passed his left ear hearing test and failed the right ear hearing test! Doc thinks he just didn't sit still long enough. He also told me that I would definitely know if he was deaf in one ear. (Would I?)

Now we have to go back on Monday for another procedure where they will sedate him and do a more extensive hearing test.

(At first they scheduled me for the second test on May 7th, but I cried and told them I couldn't wait that long. I would be too stressed out about it. So the audiologist took pity on me and squeezed us in on Monday.)

I'm so scared. I have so many questions running through my head. Could he really be deaf in one ear? What will we do? Can it be fixed? Did the tubes cause this? Would I have noticed deafness?

I'm going to go to pieces.

*******************************

That was posted yesterday at JM. I just did a quick copy and paste so that I could keep my blog updated.

I'm feeling a lot better, especially after hearing from Kel. (Thank you, Kel!) I'm pretty much sure that the test they did wasn't worth a dime and that he can hear. Last night, I spent about an hour testing him. I'd whisper on his right side or bang something on his right side, and he always turned his head or acknowledged me. He wouldn't do that if he was deaf, right? And if he is, we'll get through it. But I'm not going to worry myself sick until I know for sure what's going on. I just can't take it.

And I'm so thankfully that I have such a great husband. Next week is our state-wide testing and I just can't take any time off. So he's taking time off his job to stay here in Harlingen and take Christian in for his procedure next Monday. Then that afternoon, he'll drive back up to San Antonio for work on Tuesday.

April 23rd, 2009

... was the day that Goobie officially started walking.

Before that day, he'd take one step here and there, but not more than 2 or 3 steps. Well, yesterday, I picked him up at daycare and he was walking the halls in the center with his teacher. She was holding his hand. When he saw me, he let go of her hand and walked about 5 steps to me and then laughed because he was so excited.

My baby is growing up. Sniff, sniff.

Goob's Surgery

So we've been fighting ear infections and fluid in ear FOREVER! It started last August and has been continuing until now.

Our ped originally prescribed Claritin Allergy meds last October. It didn't help with the fluid. The infections would clear with antibiotics. The fluid won't budge. So in December, ped prescribed Claritin AND Nasonex spray. Still didn't work. Finally in January, he referred us to see an ENT.

The whole time during this process I was freaking out because I was worried that his hearing and speech development would be behind. The doc even mentioned Goob going deaf. Hello, don't say stuff like that to me. I'm a hypochondriac and I always overanalyze.

We finally got an appointment with the ENT for mid February. We confirmed that he did have fluid in the ears and beginnings of an infection. Doc prescribed heavy duty antibiotics. And we had a follow up in March. Fluid was still there during follow up. So it was time for tubes.

Tube surgery was scheduled for April 9th. We had to jump through so many hoops to get our insurance straighten out, but thankfully we got it all in line. (It's all out of network so we ended up paying a pretty penny.)

So last Wednesday night, my parents came in to be with me during the surgery and afterwards. They arrived late and we all went right to be. Goob had been asleep since 8. And I was instructed not to give him any thing to eat/drink after 12. And wouldn't you know that he woke up at 1 am?

He was very stubborn and wouldn't go back to sleep. And of course once he was awake, he saw his grandparents and thought it was time to play. Finally, finally, finally, my dad got him to sleep around 4 am. Enough time for me to barely get back into REM sleep before I had to be up by 5:45 to get to the Ambulatory CEnter at 6:30.

We arrived at 6:30. Goobs came in his pjs. He was happy as a clam with his grandpa.



And a water bottle.




Around 7, they called us back. My mom and I went to the pre-op and changed him into his hospital gown and talked to the docs.



He looked so cute in that little hospital gown. But hopefully, it'll be the only time he'll ever been in one.



Then one of the docs came and picked up Christian and started cuddling and tickling him and took him back. I loved that they didn't make this long drawn out goodbye. Just really quick. I got a little teary-eyed.

I walked back to the waiting room and sat down and called J and told him what happened. While I was still on the phone, the recovery nurse came and got me and told me they were done. It took less than 10 minutes.

It was a snap. But coming out of the gas was not. He cried and cried and cried for about 20 minutes. Finally, he was able to eat and cuddle with me and quieted down. About 30 minutes after surgery, I got him dressed and we were out of there.

He wasn't too happy about getting dressed. He really liked that hospital gown.


We left the facility at about 8 am. It only took 90 minutes from entrance to exit.

At home, he ate some pancakes and got his ear drops and Tylenol and went to sleep for several hours. By that afternoon, he was as good as new.

And I'm already noticing that he's a lot more vocal. We went to my Aunt's house on Saturday and it echoes and he was yelling and screaming just to hear himself. I think he liked the echoing.

The only set back was some minor bleeding on Saturday. I put his ear drops in and blood came out. Called ENT and he said it was probably infected and just to keep putting in drops. And the bleeding stopped!

We have a follow up appt on April 23rd. I'm so glad this is all behind us.

Long Overdue Weekly Pics: Weeks 39-49

Week 49: April 7th

I'm a bad mommy. I have no pictures between February 19th through April 7th. I'll blame the fact that I didn't have any batteries in my camera and that J just started his new job and I was adjustin to being a single mommy Monday through Thursday.

Week 42: February 17th


Week 41: February 10


Week 40: February 3rd


Week 39: January 27th

Please.

Still kicking

It's been awhile since my last post. Sorry about that. Things have been crazy around here. I'm basically a single mom during the week. And by the time I put my Goobster to bed, I can barely do more than stare blankly at the tv. I'm always so tired. Ugh. But we've survived for 3 weeks. We have 12 more to go.

This next week will be great. I'm on spring break from work. So I've been here in San Antonio with J since Friday. Then on Wednesday, I'll head to Houston and spend the rest of the week with my parents. J will fly to Houston to spend the weekend with me and then drive home with me. That evening he'll fly back up to San Antonio, ready to start the work week. Doesn't that sound complicated? But it works for us.

I hope to be able to devote more time to posting as I get more used to being on my own. I have some great pictures to share. My baby is growing so fast!! Can you believe we're only about 7 weeks from his birthday? Eek!

On another note, remember my post about going off the pills and to try charting to avoid pregnancy. Well, I'm very happy to report that our first month was highly successful. I didn't get knocked up! Woo hoo!



I have something else to say. It's highly embarassing, but I need to get it off my chest. I've already told J but he doesn't grasp the seriousness of the situation. So here goes, don't judge me too harshly. ....... I'm a Twilight fanatic. It's bad. Real, real bad. I've already read the books at least 4 times. I try to put them down and leave them alone. But I always keep getting dragged back into them. I was doing real well handling my addiction, until last Monday. At lunch, one of my coworkers brought up how they were filming the next movie. Well, that night I just had to go back and look through a few parts of the second book. I then couldn't put it down. I had to reread all the rest of them. Ugh. I have a problem. I think that I'm going to leave them all here in San Antonio that way I can't get to them.

First week-done!

So this past week was J's first week at his new job and back at his parents'. It was also my first week home alone with just Goob.

It went well. I did have a mini breakdown on Sunday evening, but I got through it. The rest of the week flew by. Goob and I really have our routine down pat in the afternoons. So that really helps. He's usually in bed by 8 and I'll have the rest of the evening to myself.

This week was a short week for us due to a local holiday. I got off of work yesterday at 12 and had today off. So Goob and I drove up to my ILs for the weekend. J's still at work now, but he'll be off in about an hour so we'll have all weekend to be together.

J's new employer is helping us sell our house and will help us buy a new house which is great. Within 20 minutes of J talking to the moving coordinators, we had two local real estate agent calling us to set up appointments.

Things are moving fast!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our Valentine's Day is winding down. It was very simple and low key and spent with my two boys. We spent the morning running errands and then we went to the movies. We saw Confessions of a Shopaholic. It was adorable. The Goob came with us and was behaving beautifully until the last 15/20 minutes and then J had to walk him around in the hallway. Now we've spent the afternoon at home. Goob is fixing to head to bed and J and I are going to enjoy a steak dinner. We've refused to go out since we're sure lines will be ridiculously long. And we also picked up some chocolate covered strawberries for dessert. Yum.

Happy Valentine's Day!

February 23rd

J will start work on Monday, February 23rd...in San Antonio. That's about 5 hours away. And since I'm under contract until June 5th. We'll be apart. For 15 weeks.

I'm trying to not stress about this, but it's hard, especially since J is so excited to start his new job.

Something new

Well, I'm officially off of my birth control pills. But I don't want to get pregnant! I'm off of them because they just are not fun for my body. I'm moody, irritable, always hungry, etc, etc.

So I did some research, asked for some advice from some JM pals. I bought Taking Charge of Your Fertility and devoured it. It's an awesome book. So informative.

J and I have decided to give Natural Family Planning a try. I'll follow the Fertility Awareness Method from TCOYF. This is the perfect time for us to start. J is fixing to move in with this parents to start a new job and we'll only see each other on weekends. This will give me plenty of time to observe and chart.

Of course, we both know that we're taking a risk here. But we've decided that if I do end up getting pregnant (which I don't want to right now), it wouldn't be the end of the world. We'd welcome another baby, especially if he/she's as cute as Goob.

Wish us luck.

Ocho

Eight years ago, J and I started dating. We were both freshmen in college. Ahhhh...memories.

Here we are. We've been married for about a year and a half and we have the cutest baby ever.

What more could we want?

J got a job!

J was offered a job on Friday. Yay! But, it's going to bring a lot of changes. It's a lot to process for all of us. More on those changes later.