Yikes - almost a year later!

Ok so obviously I suck at this whole blogging thing. I actually forgot I even HAD a blog until I did a few surveys on BzzAgent.com and one of them was about blogs. It asked if I had one. It was a head-slapping moment. I DO!! I HAVE A BLOG!! Thankfully I had it bookmarked because I honestly couldn't remember the url for it. Duh.

So, here's a quick update...

James is now 16 months old. He whines CONSTANTLY. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard. Honestly. I'm sorry but it's true. My kid is whiney. BUT, I believe a lot of it stems from the fact that he still doesn't say any words. So he's frustrated that he can't get his point across to us. We get frustrated because we have no idea what it is that he wants. But until he decides to open his mouth and at least attempt to talk, this is going to continue.

K is 12 1/2 and got braces put on about 6 weeks ago. They make her look so OLD! It's freaking me out.

We're leaving for a cruise in 5 days. Yes, we're taking a 16 month old baby on a cruise. We are certifiably insane. My sister and BIL, my niece and my mom are all coming too, so we'll have lots of help, but truth be told, I'm sort of dreading it a little. Mr. Whines-A-Lot could possibly make this the worst vacation EVER. Thankfully it's only 6 days/5 nights. It's to Canada so there are only 2 days where we'll get off the ship. But ugh. The pool. The dining room. The naps. The diapers. Really, how horrible is this going to be? I think I'll need a vacation from my vacation.

So that about sums up our lives right now. Nothing exciting.

On the Move

So the Little Man is getting up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth.

{sigh}

He'll be crawling soon. Part of me is glad about that - because I'm SO not a fan of the whole infant stage. Crawling means he's getting out of it slowly but surely. But on the other hand, my days of parking my butt in front of the computer, with him on the floor next to me, are quickly fading away. I'll have to start figuring out ways to entertain him. And I'll have to baby-proof the house. Yeah, because THAT'S what I want to spend my time doing. :)

We've already discussed moving the cleaning products from under the kitchen sink into the utility closet. Makes them so convenient. NOT.

And I have a Bruce update. The other night he did this freaky thing, just like in April 08 when he did this (you can read it here - scroll down to the 10th. I don't know how to link just that one update. Sorry). I think his leg fell asleep. I heard him jump up and it sounded like he was playing. I walked into the family room and he was crouched down. When he saw me, he tried to come to me but his back legs wouldn't support him. He stumbled towards me, crashing into furniture on the way. Just like the last time.

I ran up to the 3rd floor to get J, who wasn't home when Bruce did this 18 months ago. We finally got him calmed down and I brought Bruce outside. Because I normally take him out through the basement, and we didn't want him trying to go down an entire flight of stairs, we opened the front door. He walked down the 3 front steps and went to the bathroom. He came in and seemed much better. Then about 15 minutes later, he came to me asking to go to the bathroom again. This time I did bring him out by the basement and he went again. He promptly came upstairs and went to bed. As if nothing happened.

Meanwhile it got J and I to talking -- how on EARTH would we get him to an emergency vet if something happened to him? He's down to 80 lbs (from his high of 102), which is great, but if he were unconscious, lifting him would be next to impossible. J thought we would call an ambulance. Ha! As if they'd allow a dog into the back of an ambulance! I honestly don't know what we'd do or how we'd get him to a vet. Maybe having OUR adrenaline pumping would give us the strength to be able to lift him. I hope so because I'd hate to have something really bad happen to him just because we had no way of moving him. How sad that would be!

Anyway, we're chalking this one up to a sleeping leg again. He's had his hips checked and there's no displasia (sp??), so I'm not concerned about that. I know my arms fall asleep while I'm sleeping at LEAST once a week. Who's to say that his legs can't? I can see it happening.

And that's the story I'm sticking with. Because it's the easiest to swallow.

Jealousy

Ok, I know I've said before but I'm going to say it again.

Bruce is very jealous of the baby.

If I so much as TALK to the baby, Bruce comes running over and sits right in front of me, blocking the baby's view (unless I'm holding the baby).

When I put the baby on the floor with toys, Bruce brings me his toys. I have no problem with that except when it's his big honkin' bones that could break a bone on the baby should Bruce decide to drop it over him.

He's driving me NUTS.

Oh, and he doesn't do this at all when K or J are home. Only when it's just me and the baby.

Aaaarrrrggghhhh!!!!

Sorry. Needed to get that out.

Update and something I need to get off my chest

First an update on James. He's still pretty miserable. Well, I shouldn't say that. For not feeling good, he's still a very easy baby. But he just sniffles constantly and the poor thing can't breathe. I feel so bad for him. Took him to the doctor's yesterday and there's really nothing more I can do besides what I'm already doing. So we'll just keep plugging along.

Ok. Now, I need to get something off my chest that's been bugging me for over a year.

When I found out I was pregnant last summer, I was shocked. And that's putting it mildly. I will admit that I had a VERY hard time accepting the pregnancy. It didn't help matters that I was absolutely miserable. Some people, I've been told, made comments about how I acted like I didn't even WANT the baby.

Well let me fill you in on something.

Unless you've gone through infertility, you honestly have NO idea how heart wrenching it is. You have no idea what it's like to take your temperature every single day for 5 years straight. You have no idea what it's like to go with your husband to a reproductive clinic while he provides a "sample" and then have that "sample" injected into you. You have no idea what it's like to find out month after month after month that, yet again, you are not pregnant. It sucks the life out of you.

I went through it for 10 years. TEN YEARS. I stopped taking my temperature around year 5. I just couldn't do it anymore. But I still waited with baited breath every single month.

As time goes on, you get comfortable in your routines. You start to develop habits and customs with your little family of 3. You start to travel more, because you can. The pain gets less and less. It never truly goes away, but it's not a burning, aching pain anymore. You get older and you slowly start thinking that life is ok the way it is. Maybe there's a reason you were only blessed with one child. That one child is a lot of fun. She's smart and funny and easy to talk to. We can go anywhere with her and have a good time and not worry about her behavior or that she'll not get anything from that visit. She absorbs everything around her. Life is good. You're happy. You eventually breathe a little easier each month. Sure there's always that lingering doubt that maybe, just maybe, it will happen. But after years and years of it NOT happening, you slowly come to accept that this is your life. And at this point, that's ok.

And then after taking years to get to this point, after years of struggle, after years of questioning why and finally NOT expecting an answer, you find out that now you're pregnant.

But wait. This was supposed to happen years and years ago. When I was younger. When my first born was younger. When we were planning for it. When we were prepared for it.

We were NOT prepared for this. Not one teeny tiny bit.

It took my 10 years to accept the fact that I couldn't have another child. Do NOT expect me to just suddenly be jumping for joy when it happens at this stage of my life. No, I was NOT happy. I was shocked. I was scared out of my mind. What had we done? We were in our 40's! My husband had had a heart attack two years earlier! We were NOT ready to go down the baby road again.

But we did.

He's an absolute joy to us. I still don't know why he came to us now. I'll probably never understand that. But he did and he's here to stay. We love him to pieces. But it DID take me a long time to accept that this was happening to us. I had spent so many years trying to NOT want a baby that I had basically conditioned myself to feel that way. It was all I knew. How do you change that so quickly? How do you just do a complete 180 and be excited? I didn't know HOW to be excited about it. Because I worked so hard to NOT be. It was a hard emotion to block.

It didn't help that I was sick as a dog for 9 months either.

Today, I can't imagine not having the Little Man here with me all the time. I can't imagine what life would be like if I was home alone all day while K was in school. Because that's not how it was meant to be. And that's ok. Maybe some day it will all come rushing to me and I'll finally understand the reasoning for this to happen when it did, but until then I'll just enjoy the little things like rolling over, and grabbing a toy, wiping drool from a smiling face. Because THAT is my life now. And it's a good life.

Move, Bruce

Some day I'm going to count how many times I say the phrase "Move, Bruce" throughout my waking hours. I started counting yesterday but lost track after either 5 or 6, and it wasn't even noon yet.

See, Bruce likes to be anywhere where there's food. So that basically means the kitchen. But he KNOWS when food is about to be prepared (and honestly, I don't know how he knows this, but he does) so he goes into the kitchen and waits. And he inevitably will lay down in front of the sink or in front of the area of counter space where I usually work. This results in me having to say, "Move, Bruce". Then he moves to the next spot, where I need to go next, and I again have to tell him, "Move, Bruce". Then he'll sit in front of the refrigerator. But I need to get IN the refrigerator. Do you see where this is going?

Move, Bruce

And the cycle repeats itself. Over and over.

Then there's the baby on a blanket. I'll lay a quilt out on the floor and put the baby on it. Bruce MUST touch the blanket at all times. I tell him to move - because I don't want dog hair on the baby's blanket (can't there be just ONE place in my house that is dog-hair-free?? I didn't think so). So he shifts. But always always has at least one paw on the blanket. I can say, "Move, Bruce" 800 times but he'll make sure some part of his body remains.

Once in a while J will bring Bruce upstairs at bedtime. And where does Bruce prefer to sleep on these special occasions? On my side of the bed, of course. When I come into bed, I can NOT budge him. I start by being nice, telling him to scoot over, shift, whatever. Eventually I have to come right out and say, "Move, Bruce!"

I should just record it and press a button when I need to have him move. But then again, the batteries would probably never last.

Oops - guess I really wanted everyone to know

See - I don't blog for months and then I come and put 3 postings in a week and 2 of them are the same. Sorry about that. Guess I really wanted to get the word out that James is sick. :)

Our first cold

The Little Man is sick. He has a cold. He even started getting a little fever today (100.9). He can hardly breathe and as a thumb sucker, he really needs his nose for breathing.

He took 3 naps today (would have taken 4 if I had actually put him down at 6:00 when he was clearly ready for bed) totaling about 4 hours.

I have the vaporizer running in his room with some Vicks in it. I hope that helps to clear him up a bit.

But I have to say that as miserable as he looks, he's still happy as a clam at high tide. Honestly - he just giggles and smiles all day. When he's ready to go back to sleep, he just puts his head down wherever he is (swing, walker, floor, etc). The thumb goes immediately into his mouth and he "scratches" at whatever fabric he can get his other hand on. I just pick him up, put him in his bed, and I never hear a peep out of him. I swear if he could talk, he'd say something along the lines of, "hey - why are you making me sit here?? I'm tired! Can't you see that? Put me to BED woman!"

:)

So I have a sick, but happy little boy.

And he can thank his older sister for this one.

He's sick

It is currently 6:10 p.m. James has been sleeping for 30 minutes. Yes, I put him down for a nap at 5:30 in the afternoon. Poor little guy has a cold and is sniffling, sneezing, and just looking downright miserable. I feel so bad for him. I can't give him anything - there's nothing out there to give to infants. Sure I could give Tylenol, but he doesn't have a fever. Although I may give him some to go to sleep tonight in case he has some aches. I have no way of knowing if he has that classic icky feeling because of this cold. And he obviously can't tell me. :(

So here he is, 5 1/2 months old, and he's sick. I think K made it a LOT longer than that. But, I honestly think he got this from K. She goes to school during the day. Schools are complete germ pits. She came home last week with one and now he has one. No surprise there.

Gotta go wake him up to eat. I don't want him sleeping from 5:30 on. He'll be up for the day at 3 in the morning!