Wordless Wednesday – The Great Grandkids Photo Shoot
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The Night from Hell – 1 week later with many thanks
Tonight I am counting my blessing that both of my boys are tucked into their room sleeping soundly. Both are now on antibiotics, and one is just back from from a four day stay in the hospital.
A week ago now I was just coming back home. I went out to meet Laura to get some fabric for flannel blankets and pillow cases. I was gone for an hour and a half in a night that never wanted to end. When I arrived home both of the boys were in bed. I was getting ready to sit down to knit when I heard the little guy fussing.
JL went in to try to get him to settle with his pacifier. It worked for a little while. At about 9:30 I heard some strange coughing coming from the baby monitor and went in. I scooped JSL out of his crib and noticed he was VERY hot and having a hard time breathing. We took his temperature and it was 102.8. I quickly got the motrin and bulb syringe to clean out his nose. Ugh, what a mess.
Minutes later JSL was really laboring to breathe. His temperature was soaring and causing his heart to beat wildly. A quick call was made to my parents. I asked them to please come over quick. I just had a feeling (if you ask my friend earlier in the week I made a horrifyingly accurate prediction that this was not going to go well and we would end up in the ER – Mother’s intuition perhaps?). I called our doctor’s emergency number and when he called back asked what to do. He was very alarmed with JSL’s breathing and told us to stabilize JSL’s temperature and then take him to the ER for hydration.
My parents arrived and we put JSL into the tub. He played happily and then WHAM – the nightmare that I never hope to repeat began. Please see previous posts about this here and here.
Now I sit here crying. I am afraid to go to sleep tonight on this week after. I know I will relive those shades of gray flashbacks that a parent should never see on their child. I keep wondering about items and going through what if’s.
- What if this had happened when I was out?
- What if my mother was not there to administer rescue breaths to my baby to make him breathe again?
- What IF? I can not even fully type this one out . . . you all will know what I mean.
There are other thoughts on my mind too, but I just can not get typed out. Just having them on my mind is painful enough, reading them back would be too much.
I am so thankful that my baby is slowly getting back to himself. JSL is gaining his strength day by day and at the same time learning new tricks to show us. I am also so thankful that my mother was there that horrible day. How painful it must be for her to relive what she did. Still I cherish how my baby kissed her over and over the next day. I think somehow he knew that Nana had saved his precious life.
We also need to thank my father for staying here to man the fort while NHL slept. Big brother still does not know the horrid details of what happened while he was sleeping in his room. I knew that had he gotten up and seen Papa there he would have been comforted. Papa also stayed with NHL most of Sunday and Monday night so JL could be at the hospital with me.
My Aunt S and Mimi also helped us so much. The two of them were able to watch NHL so JL and I did not have to worry about him when everyone else went back to work. NHL had two fun days with Aunt S and her girls (cats). Then the day after JSL came home Mimi had NHL spend the day with her. He loved every minute of it. We truly are so lucky to have family here that our kids are so close to.
I would also like to thank my friends:
- Laura – thank you for chatting with me into the night while I could not sleep at the hospital. We also love the amazing flannel blankets and pillow cases that were all ready for us when we got home from the hospital.
- H & J – thank you both for coming to the hospital. JSL loved his puppy puppet and seeing familiar faces. You were able to make us all laugh when we needed it. I will forever remember JL and J putting together my pathetic hospital breast pump and the thunderous laughter that followed. That one nurse never looked at us the same again! H – thank you for taking me home Sunday to shower and get things to stay overnight. I never would have been able to drive myself and while I cleaned myself up, you cleaned up our clutter.
- Sandy – thank you for your beautiful notes. I will definitely be talking to you soon about things. Sorry that I scared you with that text message, but it was the only way I could let you know.
- To all of my internet friends – thank you for all of the comments of prayer and speedy recovery for my little guy. I am still catching up getting back to people, so please understand how much I did appreciate it.
Here are some more photos of JSL in the hospital, just back home, and today. Be sure to hover over the photos for the captions.
Now I am off. JSL is fussing and I will likely watch him sleep most of the night. I need to see his snuggly little body sleep peacefully. I have to make sure his chest goes up and down . . . I need to hear his soft breathing noises.
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Giveaway Time –> Happy Blogoversary to Moi!!!
Welcome Bloggy Giveaway participants and everyone else! (Details of my giveaway below)
February 4th marks my 1 year Blogoversary! It is hard to believe that a year has passed since I became sucked in addicted welcomed to the wonderful and wacky word of blogging.So much has changed during this year. I am no longer teaching, I am a stay at home Mommy to my two little boys (NHL 4 and JSL 8 months). This has changed my life the most. I am not stressed like I was a year ago (the stress is just different now). I have time to spend with my boys and I enjoy doing things that I want instead of lesson planning and correcting papers in my spare moments outside of school. I do miss the kids and my fellow teachers, but at this point in my life this is where I need to be – with my husband and two boys.
I am going to take a minute to thank some important people. Please excuse me if I forget someone, it is not intentional. Very little sleep this weekend can cloud my memory banks –> teething is EVIL I tell you!
- Laura – thank you for helping me to set up my original LJ blog. I kept reading yours and wanted to try something to release my stress from life at that time. So now you are technically to blame for the blogging addiction and the renewed knitting fascination.
- My Porkloving Cousin – you may not know this, but you were a HUGE inspiration. I used to squeal when I would read your latest entries. I can not wait to read the book that you author someday. I expect an autographed copy when it comes out – do not forget that!
- JL – my husband and webmaster all in one! Thank you for putting up with my blogging craziness. It is too funny how we now look at each other when something happens and say "BLOG!" I love you and am so thrilled you made me jump ship from LJ to my own special place. I owe you big time — *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*
- All of my S3Mommy, May07 and Local Mommy Group friends with blogs (Sandy, Nancy, Renee, Kmelion and others) – You read, you commented, you helped me to explore my writing style. . . you are the best!
- Kim – Thank you for introducing me to the Swaparooni group. What fun I have had with this amazing Flickr group thanks to you telling everyone all about it.
- Mrs. OMSH – the founder of the Swaparooni group who helped me to make some amazing bloggy people (CityStreams, Airing My Dirty Laundry, Coolbeans, Bethany Actually, SAJ, Dutchblitz and so many others). Heather, you have inspired me with your fun, fresh and real blog to be myself and let my sarcastic and fun side show. Plus I have to include lots of photos of my kids and things. Thank you for being an inspiration. You and Jessica are two of my mentors (there are others too – so no hard feelings for not mentioning all of you now).
- My boys – for giving me things to write about, photos to take and being super cute subjects for Mommy to use on her blog.
Why I am hosting a Giveaway:
While roaming around the Blogosphere I have found so many other blogs that I try to read daily (thank you Google Reader). There are too many to mention here and I am working on a new blogroll to give everyone some linky love. One of these blogs is Rocks In My Dryer. Shannon has another blog that showcases giveaways – perfectly titled Bloggy Giveaways. This fall she helped to arrange the Fall Y’All for people. This week she is organizing a Bloggy Giveaway Carnival. The timing is perfect with my Blogoversary so I am joining in with my first giveaway!!!!
My Giveaway Details:
I decided to put together a cute package to help busy people to have things on hand for when they actually need to write and not e-mail someone. Yes, some of us still do that from time to time! So without further babbling, here is a photo of my goodies:
Included: (1) A sheet of custom made address labels. I will put whatever you would like on them – you do not have to use Blue the dog. (2) A package of 10 blank note cards (3) A little memo pad with a pen (perfect for keeping in a diaper bag or purse to capture bloggable moments). (4) Magnetic Listpad (5) Gold and Silver metallic gel pens. (6) Valentine froggy magnet (7) $5.00 gift card for Target to get a little something special for you. Other surprises may get tossed in along with these, but these are definite.
Now for some rules/details of the giveaway (this is the teacher in me doing this):
- To enter all you need to do is leave a comment. Only one comment per person and please tell me something about yourself. Do you blog? If you do. . . why did you begin? If you are not a blogger – why not? Come on you know you want to blog – see peer pressure exists even in the Blogosphere!
- Any duplicate entries will be deleted and not eligible.
- Please be sure to leave your e-mail address and/or blog so I can contact you for your information when you win.
- A winner will be randomly selected from all of the comments by Random.org (no trees will be killed in the making of this giveaway).
- Entries will be accepted until Midnight EST on Saturday, February 2, 2008. I will announce the winner here and post it on Shannon’s website during the day on Sunday, February 3, 2008 (the day before my 1st Blogoversary).
- Unfortunately, due to being a SAHM and living on a budget, I must limit entries to people who are living in the United States and Canada only. Sorry to my other international friends, but man shipping charges are just crazy these days.
With that I hope you enjoy this and look forward to meeting new friends out there in this fun filled Bloggy world that we live in.
Comments closed 2-2-2008 . . . winner announced very soon!!!
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Visit to Bubbe & Grandpa – Day 3 & trip home
Tuesday morning we were told begged asked to let Bubbe and Grandpa sleep in to at least 9. Both boys slept a little later than normal (so 7-ish or so). JSL nursed and then we all went to watch television and check e-mail and things on the computer in the room NHL was sleeping in.
JSL was really tired from being very restless all night (teething is evil I tell you). He and I went back to rest for a little while. When we got back up everyone was getting ready for breakfast. Bubbe was making pancakes for everyone. JSL was content at first just eating his Gerber Graduate Wagon Wheels and things:
This did not last. Soon after this JSL was very vocal about wanting more. JL and I decided trying pancake in small pieces could not hurt. He had a few bites of JL’s and LOVED it. He was quite upset when it was all gone. Bubbe was great and whipped up another batch so JSL could have his own. The little monkey ate the entire thing. Here is a study of JSL eating his first pancake:
After pancake time we all got dressed. Here is JSL learning how to be a boy with JL:
We were all pretty tired and decided to stay in during the day. JL working on my father-in-laws computer and the boys and I just played and rested. Lunch was left over Greek and Chinese – very fun combo.
Then at about 3:30 JL’s friend and his fiance came over to visit for a little while. G & L have been engaged for quite some time. Just before we left an envelope was in our mailbox from them. We had already received a holiday card, so I guessed maybe it was a wedding invitation. Sure enough it was. However, this was not just a wedding invitation, it was amazing. All 4 of us were invited to be their guests for a week long event around their wedding in SC late this year and it included transportation and accommodations!!!
We had to congratulate them, thank them and ask some questions. JL and I both wanted to make sure they were positive about the kids coming. They said they were. We found out from talking with them that there are only 30 or so people invited to this destination wedding. We were beyond honored. G later e-mailed JL and said he forgot to ask him a question. He wanted JL to be in the wedding party. G was JL’s best man in our wedding. There are a ton of things going on with the wedding. The actual ceremony is going to be early in the day on Halloween. We just have to figure out how many days we will be going for, but we are going to be there for G & L on their special day.
When G & L left it was time to think about dinner. JSL was attacking me for milk, so we went to nurse in another room. This is the result:
My mother-in-law was making her delicious chicken cutlets, lentil/tomato soup, potato kugel, and challah. Everything was delicious! Soon after this the boys went to sleep and we said goodbye and thank you to my father-in-law (he had to leave VERY early for work).
The next morning we woke up and I started to pack our things up. To complicate matters it was snowing outside, but nothing to even coat the ground. My thought was to get on the road at 10:00 to avoid rush hour traffic. This did not happen. We finally hit the road at 11:00. We made great time to the halfway point in our trip. Stopping to stretch and check out a store (Disney Store) at the outlets there was good, but man it was windy. Rather than eat lunch there, we went over to Pizza Uno nearby. BIG MISTAKE!! We were finally back on the road two hours after we stopped.
Driving was not bad, we made great time and pulled up to our house to see there was no way we could get into the driveway. After we were plowed out from the initial storm, another 4-5 inches of snow fell and the city had plowed us in. JL got out and helped to get a path to head in.
All-in-all it was a very nice visit with Bubbe and Grandpa. I never had an allergic reaction to their dog Lacey, which is a first. A few things were said that bothered me, but such is life. JSL never wanted to be held by them much thanks to being so grumpy from teething, plus he has only seen them 4 other times (when he was born, his bris, NHL’s B-day, and Great-grandma’s B-day).
Sorry this took so long to finish. I was busy trying out a new photo editing program. I used it to make the collages up above.
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Visit to Bubbe & Grandpa – Day 2
Monday morning we woke up and went to have breakfast. My father-in-law went to get bagels and made anyone eggs that wanted them. I had a lox in my eggs and it was very good. While waiting to eat I decided to call my father to find out how much snow we got at home. As I previously noted in part one, when we left we were only supposed to get 3-5 inches. My father answered the phone with the following:
We got at least 9 inches!
I thought he was kidding and did not believe him. UGH! Now what were we supposed to do? There was no way that our neighbors should shovel what we later found out was 11 inches of heavy, wet snow. I made a bunch of calls to neighbors, my father, and our friends to try to find someone to plow us out. JL then decided to call his boss. He owns several rental properties near us. He called us back as I was still in the process of calling people. He said he would plow us out. The nicest part – he said there was no charge! Thanks to him and our neighbor’s doing the walkway and sidewalk we were in good shape. The problem – storm two was heading their way AGAIN with 3-5 more inches the next day. YUCK!!!!
Once this was taken care of we all took turns showering and eventually made it out to lunch. JL and I insisted that we have lunch at the amazing Greek restaurant that is located there. We have no good Greek places here that are close enough with good parking, so this is very important to us. We had an amazing lunch and took leftovers back for the next day. After this we stopped back at the house quickly to put food away and head over to Radio Shack and Trader Joe’s again. Yes, we had to head there again. I wanted to get some gifts for people that were helping us out with the snow removal.
Next we decided to head back home for a little while before going to Chuck E Cheese (wanted to change diapers and nurse JSL). NHL wanted to take Bubbe and Grandpa there to play. We were not too sure about this since he has been very skittish there in the past (thanks to the costumes). Unfortunately, he did not do well this time. We used a coupon and had 100 tokens and barely used any. NHL was very upset that this Chuck E Cheese was not the same as the one at home. *sigh* He started to flip out quickly and we finally left. Here are some photos from the few things that we did while there.
After we got back from Chuck E Cheese JSL fell asleep from all of the fun and excitement. Not to worry it did not last long. Soon after this he was up and eating dinner with everyone else.
After the "fun" at Chuck E Cheese we went back home and ordered Chinese Food for New Years Eve. My in-law’s friend S came over and once the kids were in bed we started to watch a movie. JL and I were left at about 11:00 and we were not able to finish the movie. JSL kept waking up crying. The poor little guy just could not catch a break.
JL and I watched the ball drop and then we were up for a while after taking care of JSL and listening to illegal fireworks that were shaking the house.
Day 3 and the return trip home coming soon.
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