Aerick's Surgery

Yesterday was Aerick's surgery and it went very well.

He was such a trooper, woke up fine yesterday morning, didn't ask for anything to drink, which is very unusual for him.  He said he was hungry once during the 45 minute drive, but once I told him he had to see the doctor before he could eat he was fine with it.

Once we got into his room in the Short Stay Unit we changed him into his little hospital outfit.  SO CUTE I might add.  We even brought it home :)

Then we had to wait until it was time to give him his sedative and such.  They brought a tv in so that Siera & Aerick could watch some tv.  I'd also packed a backpack for Siera and there were a couple of cars in it.  So we pulled the cars out for Aerick.

For whatever reason he refused to look at me and give me a regular smile!  He loved playing with the cars and especially loved it when Mommy vroom, vroomed with him.  Siera was having a good time too.  "Fixing" Daddy's chair...

As Aerick was waiting the bands on his ankle were really irritating him.  Poor guy.  He also cuddled with Mom and Dad some because I mean, how freaking boring!  LOL

After a while it was time to give Aerick his sedative.  Thankfully they let me give it to him and it must have tasted awful because he tried to spit it back at me and to be honest, it stank.  BAD.  He also hated the pulse/ox monitor on his big toe.  It was kinda funny.

After the sedative you just have to watch.  He didn't really get loopy or anything, just kind of...  Silly?  Yeah, I suppose you could say he got silly.  Seriously though this is why you don't give children drugs.  Just look:

Tell me that isn't the funniest looking thing?  The last picture was right as they were coming in to take him from us for surgery and he had been trying to eat me.  He'd opened his mouth really wide so I thought he was trying to give me a silly kiss, but then I realized he was actually trying to bite me!  And he was making the noises too.  He actually reminded me of ME when I've been drinking, LOL.  Such a silly kid, love that boy to death.  I'm so glad we did the sedative before they took him from us because he was more than complacent.  He even went willingly to the nurse that took him to surgery.

I love that boy so much.  It broke my heart to send him with her, but as you can see he has big brother's pony and a blanket from home.  I didn't cry either!  What a good Mommy I was.  From there we took Siera to the cafe for some breakfast.  That actually wasted the PERFECT amount of time and I'm really glad we took her instead of leaving her with a sitter like we'd originally planned.

Once we got back to the reception/waiting area we made a cup of tea for Aerick to drink when he got out of surgery.  Siera watched a few minutes of cartoons and the elderly woman who was guarding the door gave her a few Care Bear coloring pages and some crayons.  She was very, very happy.  Then they put us into a small room so the doctor could come tell us how it went.  He came in and the surgery went very well.  He told us to expect Aerick's scrotum to have a pucker in it because they weren't able to stretch the testicle as much as they wanted to.  Then we went back to Aerick's room to wait for him:

It took nearly 10 or 15 minutes before they finally brought me my baby!  He was just lying there as they wheeled him towards me, but as soon as he heard my voice he started fussing.  Poor punkin'!  I felt horrible that I'd put him through this.

I'm so glad that he got to take his big brother's pony and his blanket with him.  I think that helped.  He felt SO hot when I touched him but he wasn't really that hot.  I picked him up within seconds of taking that picture.  He hated that IV, poor punkin.

He loved the Sierra Mist though!  LOL  He drank two of those sippy cups of it.  Then we had to sit and wait, wait until he'd freaking pee!  He never did pee so they went ahead and discharged us.  We were told just to keep an eye on him.

We switched cuddling him from time to time.  Though I cuddled him the most :)  Siera was such a good girl.  She was a little wild, but nothing like usual.  As long as we kept her mostly entertained she did well.

On our way home we stopped and got some Taco Bell for lunch.  Siera fell asleep while she was waiting, Aerick vomited and Ken cleaned him up.  As we got on the freeway to get home I gave Aerick a piece of his quesadilla and he ate some of it then passed out.  On the way home we had to stop at WalMart to pick up some diapers and his pain medication.

Once we were actually home I sat on the couch with Aerick and ended up lying down.  Apparently I fell asleep for about an hour and a half.  Which was good.  Aerick never moved, just laid there in his mama's arms.  I think he loves me, LOL.  Siera went wild once we got home.  Absolutely crazy!  She was jumping on things and running around, making noises, keeping Aerick up, etc.  I got up and let Aerick lie down on the couch for a bit, then he fell asleep.  In the meantime Siera was trying to wake him.

I realized Aerick hadn't pee'd yet and it'd been nearly 8 hours.  I called the doctor's office and they said to wait it out and then if he still didn't pee to put him in a bath.  If that still didn't work to take him to our local hospital.  I hate, hate our local hospital, so I was praying that the bath would work.  I waited for Aerick to wake up, waited for Ken & Siera to finish eating and then I put about 3 inches of warm water in the bathtub.  I climbed in and put Aerick on my lap.  I put his feet in the water and his bottom on my leg (so that his incision wouldn't get wet) and he started to tinkle.  He got scared and stopped so I reassured him that it was okay and he finally finished.  The water turned a little yellow.  Poor punkin had obviously been holding it all day.

At 9 he asked to go to bed and he went right to sleep.  He slept until 7 o'clock and was completely soaking wet.  I put him into bed with me and apparently he climbed right out and came into the living room to play.  Ken said he was running around, jumping, and playing as though he'd never had surgery.  I got up about 10 and realized that he was indeed doing that.  It was insane.

He asked about 11 to get into his crib, so I put him in there, but at 11:30 he still wasn't asleep, so I got him up and let him play for a bit.  At 12:30 Siera and Aerick weren't behaving and definitely weren't listening so I put them into bed.  Siera went right to sleep, but Aerick took until about 1:15 to fall asleep.

I did some stuff online and then decided to blog about my baby's surgery.  So here it is.

Anger

As I sit here waiting for Siera to fall asleep because I decided to bring her home instead of letting her stay the night at a friends house I've been thinking about my life.  My no good, horrible life.

My husband is an abusive asshole.  He threw a remote at me Friday night.  It hit my elbow and now there is a bruise.  I need to get a picture of it.  Why'd he throw the remote at me?  We were watching tv, Riley started barking and Ken started saying something to me.  I said, a little snotty, "if you're going to talk could you please pause the tv?"  So he got pissed and threw the remote at me.

Since then I've pretty much ignored him.  We can't discuss ANYTHING without it being a fight.  Tomorrow is Aerick's surgery and I'm super anxious about it.  I can't discuss that with him though because he gets all irritated and pissy with me.  I have no idea what the hell for!!! 

Over the course of nearly 5 years he's called me: irrational, psycho, crazy, stupid, and several other not so nice names.  He calls my family and friends names.  Yes, my family isn't the most stable and I don't particularly care for them now a days.  However, they are my family!  It hurts my feelings when he says those things regardless of how I feel about my own family.

I'm so angry and so hurt.  Ken just being around me makes me angry.  Ken calling the house makes me angry.  Ken LOOKING at me makes me angry.  I'm so damn angry it makes me sad.

I hope the caseworker I emailed gets back to me soon.

Mundane

My life is so mundane.  Ken is back to telling me that he's going to sell the house.  He's not really trying very hard to find a job, as far as I'm concerned.  He DID buy a newspaper the other day, CRAZYYY.

This weekend was incredible.  My younger sister brought her 2 boys to my house and spend the weekend.  It's been so long since her boys got to play with my children.  They were outside ALL DAY on Saturday, which meant the doors on my house were open all day.  I loved it and reveled in every minute.  The kids were exhausted, in bed and asleep by a decent time.  Two kids put themselves to bed at 8:30 p.m. and then they kept going, dropping like flies until about 9:30 p.m.  Then they woke starting at 7 a.m. until about 9 p.m.  It was so wonderful.  I was sad when the boys left yesterday,  not so much about my sister!

I got some good pictures, but I'm not going to post pictures of her boys because they're not my children.  Despite the fact that I doubt she'd care, I'm still not doing it.

I'm exhausted from it all, but it's all good.

Today was taking Frank to the hospital for some blood work.  We have to make sure his kidneys are functioning well enough for him to take the contrast that he needs for his CT on Thursday.  Sadly, Aerick has his pre anesthesiologist appointment in Medford a few hours after Frank's CT.  It's going to be a long, desperate day!  LOL

I'm still trying to prepare myself for Aerick being in surgery.  Especially taken from me before he's asleep.  *sigh*  Anyhow, not much else to tell.

Oh other than Ken throwing a fit because Frank doesn't like to go to McDonald's or any of the quick "restaurants" for meals.  He likes to take us out to eat every once in a while for helping him out by taking him to the doctors appointments.  However, Ken hates it when he does because he doesn't really have the money to do it.  While I understand that he hasn't paid any bills this month, hasn't taken us out to eat in a bit, so I didn't see a big deal with him taking us to breakfast this morning.  Ken was irate with me.  And he's fucking indecisive as hell.  Ask him where he wants to go to eat and he will NEVER make a decision.  I have no idea why, but he does it with other things as well, not just eating out.  Anyhow, we ended up going to Elmer's and it cost us about $50 for 6 of us to eat. 

Ken has been muttering all afternoon, "$50 for breakfast!"

My Life

Why is it that when the Mom feels like shit it doesn't matter?  Suddenly Dad isn't feeling well and he gets to lounge in bed all day with no kids interrupting.  Yeah, he's lying in bed while I've been sick with a cough for 4 days (can't stop coughing!) and he had the nerve to tell Siera to get out of our room that he "needed" time to rest.  *cough*bullshit*cough*

Yes, I tell Siera to go play but I never tell her to just leave me alone simply because I "need" or "deserve" time to myself.  Mommies don't have that option.  Mommies have to troop on.

Well, Siera had another dental appointment this week and it went really well.  At her pediatrician appointment a couple of weeks ago I asked for an anti anxiety for her.  I was advised to give it to her as close to 3 1/2 hours before her appointment.  So despite having a 10 o'clock appointment and didn't end up in the chair until 11, she still let them look in her mouth and do the x rays.  We're having 4 front (top) teeth pulled, 2 top molars pulled, the molars on top capped and, I believe, the eye teeth capped.  We may also need to have the bottom molars capped, but I didn't catch that in the correspondence.  We'll see.

Aerick is flip flopping on the potty training which is fine.  Honestly, I'd rather he wait until after his surgery, but whatever floats his boat.  Next week we have his pre anesthesia appointment and then 4 days after that is his surgery.  I'm nervous, but I know he'll be fine.

James has his parent-teacher conference at his new school tomorrow and, of course, Ken got a fucking job.  So, now I may not be able to go because it's not very productive to have children running around while I'm trying to listen to the teacher!!!!!  Don't get me wrong, I'm REALLY glad Ken got that job because we need the money, but hot damn!

At some point in the next few days I need to take Frank to get some blood work to make sure his kidneys are functioning okay, then the same day as Aerick's pre anesthesia appointment I need to take Frank for a CT scan.  My life is just never, ever ending.  I can't stop coughing, I should really be seen by a doctor, but I can't.

So, anyhow, there wasn't much to post the last week, but there ya go.  An update on us, for now.

I didn't turn the tv on for the kids all day so they're just now watching some and they're ecstatic!  LOL  Yay for Little Einsteins, Max & Ruby, Dora the Explorer, Ni Hao Kailan and Word World!!!

Realization

So, I realized that I don't need to post everyday.  I'm too boring for that.

Besides, all I did yesterday was sit around and yell at the kids!  LOL  No, seriously, Siera is such a handful that I'm just not doing well with it.  She hadn't napped since Friday, but then today, ahhhh, today.  Today she napped!  What a blissful one hour that was.

Today was another whatever day.  I do need to shower tonight because we have a playdate from 9 to 12 tomorrow.  I'm so excited.  Homemade whipped cream with strawberry yogurt for dipping the apple slices and then roasted vegetable Ritz and whole grain Club crackers with slices of cheddar cheese.  Yum, yum!

This afternoon I finally got to watch Jason & Molly (The Bachelor) get married. :)  Hooray!

I try to lay the kids down about 11 a.m. for naps and then I have to wake Aerick at 3 p.m.  Typically he'll nap all day long if I didn't wake him.  This afternoon I walk into his room to find him climbing out of the crib onto James' desk chair that Siera had left next to his crib.  He was so sleepy and yet had this huge grin on his face.

Then bedtime comes.  I left the chair next to his crib all day so that when bedtime came I could coax him to climb into the crib and climb he did.  SOOOOO proud of himself.  I still left the chair there to test him and see if he'd climb out.  Sure enough he did.  Then he played with Daddy for 5 to 10 minutes, went into his room, shut the door and climbed back into bed.  As I opened his bedroom door he had flopped onto the mattress and was preparing to tuck himself in.  When he saw me at the door he jumped up, both hands in the air and said, "I did it!  I did it!"  "I did it!  I did it!"  LOL  Cutest damn thing I have ever seen and I have 3 fucking kids!

Now I'm going to eat spaghettios with  meatballs and call it a night.  Kinda.

Boring

Are you bored reading my blog yet?  Yeah, so am I, but it gives me some clarity!  LOL

Siera will not stop peeing her pants, so we took away her television watching.  We'll see how she does tomorrow.

Aerick is still trying to potty train, LOVE it!

Um...  We were supposed to have dinner guests, but the wife's grandfather died today.  *moment of silence*  Dinner was a London Broil on the grill, garlic mashed potatoes and corn.  YUM

Then we put the kids to bed (Siera doesn't nap anymore so she was t.i.r.e.d!)  Well, now I'm lying in bed with the husband.  He's asleep, of course, after 5 minutes of watching his thing.  So, I'm going to log off and watch some tv myself.  I'll probably go get myself a snack or two or three :)

Emotions, Emotions

So, James had to go back to his father today.  That's not a big deal but he freaked out when I picked him up on Friday and then today when we told him he was going back.  It's quite ridiculous.  Need to figure that out...

It was a pretty uneventful day.  I woke to the kids screaming through the house, which I don't enjoy, but it happens when Daddy is in charge.  He means well...

Fed them ham and cheese hot pockets for lunch, then laid Aerick down for a nap and sent Siera & James outside to play.  They only came in to bathe (about 45 minutes) and then went back outside, but this time Aerick was up so they took him with them.  Then I made mini corn dogs for dinner and served them with applesauce.  Shortly after that we needed to take James to his dad.

On the way home I asked Ken to run through Dairy Queen and I got a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup blizzard with chocolate ice cream.  Siera was asleep before we got to the drive thru so we just came home, put her to bed, let Aerick watch a show and now he's in bed.  So, I'm logging off to head to bed to watch tv myself.  I haven't had dinner yet, so I'm sure I'll be hungry in the next hour.

Somewhere in there I did a load of dishes and made myself some lunch.  I also bathed the kids, LOL.

Long, Tired Days...

I had trouble falling asleep again last night...  I have no idea why, but that's alright.  I'm working on it.

I've missed a few days so let me try to catch up.
Thursday - I awoke with a migraine after 7 straight hours of sleep, plus 2 additional hours after I dealt with Aerick.  Frank, my father in law, was supposed to have a check up with his radiation doctor, but it got canceled before I even woke up.  Thank goodness!

Since I had a migraine I just lounged all day.  Ken had to work that day, but Aerick was due for a nap shortly after he left.  About 20 minutes after Ken left I laid Aerick in his crib with a fresh cup and I had Siera call Auntie Mariah.  She was instructed to tell Mariah that Mommy was sick and that Auntie needed to come out to our house!  She did pretty well talking on the phone, I was very surprised.  However, Mariah didn't understand exactly what she was saying, LOL.  While Aerick was lying down I managed to doze for about an hour.  Siera actually sat on the couch for a good portion of that time because she knew that Mommy wasn't feeling well.  At some point in that hour Siera heard Aerick and ran down to see what he needed.  She brought me his sippy cup, so I filled it and sent her to give it to him.  She gave him the cup, "tucked" him in, shut the bedroom door, and told him that she loved him!  It was soooooo sweet to hear her being a doting "Mommy" to her baby brother.

Once that hour was over Siera said she wanted McDonald's and asked if her Auntie Riah could bring her some.  I told her she had to call and ask, so she did!  I'm so proud of her :)  Anyways, she managed to convince Auntie to bring her some McDonald's and then I got Aerick to finally sleep after he'd eaten.  Siera wouldn't be quiet any longer, but to be honest she was such a good girl for most of the morning that I couldn't blame her for getting all nutso after lunch, LOL.

Friday - Well, I had to go get groceries.  I thought I was going alone, when all of a sudden Ken said he and the kids were going with me.  le sigh  Shortly after we got to the grocery store I got a phone call from Chris that he was already in town and he'd bring James to me.  Awesome!  I met him at the front of WalMart and took James to finish grocery shopping with me.  At some point I had to send the kids and Ken to McDonald's because they were just driving me nuts.  I rushed through the rest of my shopping and got into line.  By the time I got half the stuff onto the belt Ken and the kids had caught up to me.  We finished up and headed home.  Thankfully Siera & Aerick had fallen asleep on the way home and they continued to sleep once transferred into their beds.  Then I got to put away all the groceries and make myself lunch.  For dinner I ended up just making the kids Hamburger Helper Singles, peaches & pears and yogurt.  They ate pretty well, but I had to put James to bed at 6:30 since he was being SO defiant.  All the kids were in bed and asleep by 8:30 p.m.  Wonderful!

Today, Saturday - I met Chris to give him James since today is his daughter's first birthday (and thus her party) and we wanted James to be there.  Then I ran into WalMart to grab a few things I forgot yesterday.  While I was in there I saw Chris, James, his fiance and their daughter.  I headed home and prepared for Ken's father's dinner.  I made a cake, a beef roast and yum, yum.  LOL  We finished up dinner by 4 and were eating by 4:15 p.m.  Then I got a call at 5 p.m. that they were done with the party and such, so I left to get James.  When we got back we did cake and sang Happy Birthday to Grandpa.  Siera & Aerick went to bed at 7 and now I'm going to get James something to eat and be done with the evening :)

Days Seem So Long

The days just seem so long and I'm not sure why.  I went to bed at 10:30 and 11 respectively two nights in a row this week and then I went and fudged it up last night by staying up late to watch my recorded Bachelor and After the Final Rose Ceremony.  *sigh*  I realllllllllllllly need to learn more self control.  I'm sure sleep is a big culprit in my long days, LOL.

Siera had her pediatric appointment yesterday and it went really well.  Debbie Ayoli checked everything on her twice to reassure me that she's fine.  So, the dentist saying to have her tonsils looked at in a concerned voice was for nothing!  She also mentioned that Siera's ears hurting is probably because of her teeth.  *sob*  My poor punkin'.  I'm glad I'm doing something now, but I waited too long to stand up to Ken and that pisses me off beyond belief.  I waited so long that now my daughter is in pain.  I was also told to just keep playing with the kids' diets.  Maybe they're sensitive to gluten, but not celiac, y'know?  Therefore I will continue to watch our diets.

We took the kids to McDonald's after her doctor appointment and for whatever reason Aerick soaked through his diaper by the time we got there.  I swear this kid is on newborn diaper changing schedule!

This morning we had our WIC appointment.  That went surprisingly well.  5 years ago when I was on WIC with James they had an office full of mean, mean women.  Thankfully I had a super nice woman today and I know her!  LOL  She was my sisters "worker" when she had her kids and was on WIC.  That was reassuring...  We get per month for each child: 3 gallons of milk; 1 quart of milk; 1 pound of cheese; 32 ounces of whole wheat bread, tortillas, or brown rice; 16 to 18 ounces of peanut butter or 16 ounces of dry beans or peas; 36 ounces of cereal (like Kix, Chex, Cornflakes, etc); $6 for fresh fruits/veggies or frozen, 1 dozen eggs; and 2 - 64 ounce bottles of juice or 11.5 or 12 ounces of frozen.  All of that times two for our family is soooo helpful.  I cannot express how incredibly appreciative of this program that I am.

After our appointment we needed to go to WalMart to fill a few vouchers and, at the very least, grab some diapers for Aerick.  We're going through a box every 7 to 10 days, instead of 14 days on the nose...  While we were there Siera decided that she wanted soda, then she wanted string cheese.  Ken finally picked her up because she wasn't following us and she kicked and screamed.  It was horrible.  I have never been that embarassed before because of my children.  Ken told her he was taking her out to the car and then didn't.  That is SO irritating.  She KNOWS that Daddy won't do shit about her which is why she acts like this.

So then when we get up to the checkout we're in a superbly long lane with a superbly slow checker.  A new checker came up and opened the lane right next to us and summoned us over.  Of course we went, we were the next one in line.  A woman came rushing up beside us and about jumped on me.  When I started to put stuff on the belt she started sighing.  Then we realized that I had mistakenly grabbed 38 ounces of cereal instead of 36 ounces, so I had to send Ken to grab a different cereal.  Wouldn't you know, I also grabbed the wrong fucking peanut butter.  There were only a couple of 18 ounce jars so I had just grabbed one.  Well, duh, I grabbed Low Fat and on WIC you can't buy Low Fat.  *sigh*  The woman behind me said in a pissed off voice, "She's got WIC" when I sent Ken to exchange the cereal, then she got even puffier when I had to go exchange the peanut butter.

I had 3 checks to fill and as I was finishing up the first one, the freaking woman behind me was inching closer and closer.  I still had 2 more checks, plus the diapers and soda in my cart.  I finished the rest of the checks and then tried to put the soda and diapers on the belt.  There was just no way that was going to happen, so I went around the other side, told Ken, "you need to take care of the soda and diapers because this woman just keeps getting closer."  Apparently he didn't hear me, but he took care of the rest of the stuff.

When we got to the car I explained why I was so pissed off and he is NOT happy.  Honestly, I'm not a confrontational person, but if I hadn't had my children with me I would have said something to this woman.  She was so close that I could have looked to my left and touched her with my NOSE.

Chicken with an italian dressing packet over it, parmesan Pasta Roni and a vegetable.  Hopefully bedtime will be at a decent time tonight so that I can *fingers crossed* go to bed early.

Have a great night!

Relaxing Was My Name-O!

I relaxed most of the day.  YAY!  I also got a chance to watch a Lifetime movie during nap/quiet time.

I managed to do some dishes and make dinner.  So at least everyone was fed.

Tomorrow Siera has a doctor appointment.  We need to talk about her tonsils, her bowels, her ear and her attitude!  LOL

The kids are in bed, so I'm on my way to watch some tv and then off to bed myself.  6 a.m. comes mighty early when you have to be at the doc's office at 8:30 a.m. and it's about a 30 minute drive depending on traffic!

How in the world could I forget?  After dinner I stripped Aerick of his diaper because he looked so soggy.  Within a few seconds he passed some gas so I said, "Aerick do you want to go potty?"  Of course he said yes so we ran for the toilet.  I read him 2 books and started on a third when he started to go poop!  And then he pee'd.  He was scared when he realized that he was pooping, but boy oh boy was I ever proud!  Once he calmed down (a whole 2 seconds) he got super excited and gave both me and Daddy a high five and then gave Siera  big ol' kiss!  It was soooooo sweet!!!!!!!!!  I'm so proud of my little one.