I've gotta say it...

BIG BABY!

Al went to urgent care right from work (they couldn't get him in for a regular appointment on base until "possibly" tomorrow). Yep, otitis externa, or in other words "swimmer's ear".

Yes, I KNOW it can be painful. Yes, I KNOW i should have some more sympathy, but if I hear one more moan I might be tempted to injure his other ear. I'll blame my lack of patience on the child who is actually wedged under my ribs and on top of my cervix at the same time. So I will vent here instead. LOL.

Is it me, or are men big babies about some stuff? Don't get me wrong, he could be bleeding severely and probably choose not to go get stitches, but when it comes to the minor stuff it's enough to send them to bed for weeks.

On the other hand, my mom is putting on her happy face and complaining as little as possible!

History repeats itself???

So just over 4 years ago I was patiently waiting to have my Tyler. Meanwhile, EVERYONE else was heading to the hospital. In fact, I was as well, but only to visit others. LOL. My mom was hospitalized. In fact she was still there on my due date and I remember visiting her and people thinking I was nuts (it was about an hour or more away) but, come on, I was going to a HOSPITAL. What's the worst that can happen? Anyway, I recall her telling the doctors that she would sign herself out if they didn't discharge her because she WAS going to be there for the birth of her grandson. Luckily she was discharged in time, only because Tyler was a stubborn late baby, but all ended up working out okay. I'm sure she was in severe pain still, but she hid it.

Then there was Al. He managed to scratch his cornea late one night, AFTER my due date had come and gone. I recall driving him to the hospital at like 1:00AM or later and people trying to bring ME a wheelchair, obviously just assuming I was in labor. Nope. I'm sure you can imagine my sarcasm was in full force that night. No, not in labor, just here cause my husband has a boo-boo on his eye. Okay, I know a cornea scratch is likely painful, but my sympathy was no longer where it should have been.

So, here I am 4 years later. Due in 10 days with Jason (it still feels funny to call him that). My mom is currently highly medicated and nowhere near ready to come to Florida. Al is on his way to urgent care this afternoon as he thinks he may have burst his eardrum or something. Ah, yes, history repeats itself!

Edited to add: I should mention that neither of these people are normally attention seeking. My mom is NOT bothered by pain. As she'd happily point out, she grew up with 3 brothers. She was/is tough! Okay, Al can be a BIG BABY sometimes, but he's not one to go to the hospital or even see a doctor. He has not been to an ER/urgent care for himself since the cornea incident. And he NEVER goes to the doctor except for routine stuff (which they are required to keep up with in the military).

Almost ready!

We've got paint! Saturday I finally convinced Al to help me paint. And it's done!
Of course the room isn't done. Despite the fact that I'm not thrilled with the layout I am doing my best to make it work (the futon needs to be in there for guest space and/or nursing and I already have the dresser in the closet...too much furniture and not enough room)! I still have to figure out where I want to hang things and I have to set up the crib and paint a few little projects, etc. All of that is likely on hold though until my package arrives from my friend Hill, who just finished up Jason's quilt for his crib, as well as some curtains I believe. Since I don't really know the final look of it, I'm waiting on setting up a lot of the stuff. So keep your fingers crossed that USPS does a decent job of getting this package here this week!

Please keep my mom in your thoughts. She had surgery on her knee on Friday, and although she normally avoids all medications and doesn't let pain get in her way, she's currently back at the hospital with severe pain....so something is obviously going on.

Fun mail day!

So my first mail delivery was this:

12 Bum Genius 3.0 one-size cloth diapers. Aren't they so cute? I know, you think I'm crazy. I don't care. I think they're so purty. As my friend Andrea says, it's my "first fluffy mail"! Apparently once you get started on cloth diapering you can get quite sucked in and end up buying custom items and such. In fact, "fluffy mail" must be some sort of term in the cloth diapering world. LOL. Anyway, Andrea is the one who has been giving me all my guidance in this subject, and I'm very thankful.

Then there was this:
Yep, in case you can't tell, they are butterfly larvae. I had the brilliant idea to get Tyler a butterfly kit for his birthday and you have to mail away for the larvae (aka: caterpillars), which they then send to you via mail. You keep them in the container until they turn into chrysalides (like those cocoon things) then we put them in their habitat. Apparently we should be having new butterfly birth right around the time of new baby birth. How completely inconvenient. LOL.

Then there was this:

I'm sure it's obvious what it is. The cutest monkey costume ever. I took a chance on this through eBay and since it's a 3-6 month I'm not 100% sure it will fit Jason, but I'm sure I can re-eBay it.

Speaking of eBay, we've had lots of auctions ending and it feels so good to be getting all this CRAP out of the house. 6 more auctions ended tonight, only 4 of them selling, but they were pretty good money makers, not to mention pretty big items (as in physical size). I'll be happy to have them gone. So tomorrow it will be off to the post office for, I believe, the 5th time this week.

Vision check

For one, Tyler was soooo good. He was tired (he even ASKED if it was naptime yet) and I had to drag him to the eye doctor. He did great, even though I KNEW he was very nervous. He only cried at the time of those darn eye drops (which I can understand why). Everything checked out great, which is a huge relief. BTW, he got to pick a prize out of a treasure chest on his way out of the appointment. He picked out star-shaped sunglasses which he now proudly wears as his "rock and roll glasses". Hmm, I have NO idea where he got that from. LOL.

From there we had a special "date". Dinner at 3:00. We're pretty cool. Tyler picked Olive Garden, which I was pretty darn happy about considering I LOVE Olive Garden and Al isn't incredibly fond of it. I've been trying to fit in some nice "mommy and Tyler time", especially being so close to my due date. It all worked out great because Al had to work late so he grabbed something to eat there and Tyler was in bed by 7:45. Then I was able to spend some quality time searching MORE cloth diapering stuff before Al got home close to 9:00PM.

Me, what am I doing at 12:15Am? Well, obviously NOT sleeping. Why are my nesting abilities in full force in the late night hours?

asking for some happy thoughts....

Yesterday my mom fell at work when she slipped on some water at the base of the stairs as she was walking down them. Her one leg slipped forward and her other knee went smack onto the corner of the concrete steps. She broke her kneecap directly in half (which actually is a pretty impressive Xray). The lower half is in many small pieces. They sent her immediately to the hospital and eventually she was released after they stabilized it and put in her orders to see a orthopedic surgeon (through workman's comp). On her way out of the hospital she passed out. So they readmitted her. Turns out she is okay though (at least the passing out issue).

Anyway, so she went from there to workman's comp where luckily the orthopedic surgeon was unexpectedly in the office. He saw her immediately. She will need surgery, which she will likely have on Friday. This will be a LONG recovery period, in which time she'll have to undergo frequent physical therapy.

So please think happy thoughts for my mom, especially for her surgery on Friday.

Love you mom! XOXOXOXOXO

No more appointments please!

So last week we drove to Tyler's pediatrician for his scheduled 4-year-old "well check". Got there, waited a few minutes in the waiting room, only to discover that they couldn't allow him to be seen because it had not been a full year since his last well check-up. Go figure. Glad I woke him up early from his nap and dealt with afternoon traffic for that! If I didn't like the pediatrician's office so much, I would have been ticked. Okay, I was ticked, but not too badly. They did end up seeing him though to take a look at the rash he's had FOREVER. Finally gave me a cream, even though they still insist it will go away on it's own. Also discovered he has excema. Again. So back to the pharmacy. Oh, and due to his "poopy issues" (which I will spare you the details of) I got to do a 3 day stool sample. And back to the pediatrician to drop it off. Joy.

Yesterday brought me to the pediatrician again. And again I had to wake him from a nap for this. He was a good boy and cooperative...until he heard the word vaccine. He cried (okay, more like screamed) from the point the doctor left the room for at least a good 5 minutes until the nurse came in to give him his vaccines. Or, more precisely, his THREE vaccines. Apparently this was quite traumatic. For us both. I just live to hear him scream bloody murder while trying to break free from the grasp of myself and the nurse. Always fun.

At his appointment we got his lovely stats. 37lbs and 39.75 inches. Apparently that's average height and slightly above average weight. Well, I know how big he USED to be, so I'm not worried. Pee sample and finger prick (blood sample for iron level) were all great. Results from the stool sample were normal. Hmmm.

Vision test. Not so good. Failed in his left eye. So tomorrow (yes, tomorrow, since they have a cancellation) we're off to the eye doctor. I'm just so utterly overjoyed with this idea. If I didn't want to wait a few weeks I had to take the cancellation. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled they had a cancellation, being that I don't want to be dealing with taking him AND a newborn to the eye doctor. But could 1:00 be any more inconvenient, for a child who has napped every weekday since school started? That should be fun...for everyone involved. Please wish us luck though, because Al is seriously stressing the results of this appointment, being his vision history.

Oh, and did I mention that Thursday I have an OB appointment. Even though I have been approximately 617 times since I got pregnant, I really hope this isn't the last appointment. I'm not ready for baby to arrive yet! So, okay, I'll accept 1 more appointment. That's it, then I'm done. LOL!