A Rough Night - but YAY!

This entry should have happened on 1/23/2009

We're still working out the kinks for the Big Boy Bed. I won't bore you with the exact details until I know we have it totally worked out on our own here, but so far it isn't working more than it is. Which stinks. We had a few successes sprinkled in with a LOT of un successes. Thursday night, Grandpa and Grandma rolled in just in time for reading books and putting William down. He went down RIGHT away - a huge surprise.

Another huge surprise? He woke up every 10 minutes to 45 minutes crying. Not just whining, but sobbing for his Mama. After hauling my huge belly out of bed for the 500th time in an hour, I finally gave up and slept with him. It was NOT a good night's rest because he really was up every 10 minutes to 40 minutes for the whole night. Plus, he is a wild man sleeper. Luckily for us, Grandma sent Mama back to bed for awhile in the morning. It would have been a rough day for us without Grandma and Grandpa here today!

Happy Birthday!!

Can you believe my BABY is two years old today? I'll admit in some ways I can totally believe it. Most ways though it seems utterly impossible. Crazy even. The baby that started off two years ago looking like this:

Now looks like this:

Or this, depending on his mood:

We spent a lot of time celebrating with Grandma and Grandpa over the weekend so tonight was pretty low key. We went out for pizza at a kids place and played some arcade games. After games, we came home for cake.

Mama and her big boy
William wearing the shirt mama made him: Warning: I'm TWO!
Riding in the spaceship

Jumping in the bouncy house
Sitting in the race car (it was out of order)
Riding the Merry-go-Round
Riding the horse
Playing a NASCAR game with Daddy (PS William and Daddy were a team and Mama drove her own car in the same race. The birthday boy's team won! Nice driving!)

Dr Appointment

I'm starting to feel like I live at my doctor office. It is only going to get worse. Uneventful appointment today. Heart rate was good, pressure good, weight gain was overly good (I am an overachiever). No concerns with the exception that my DOCTOR IS SCHEDULED TO BE ON SPRING BREAK WITH HER KIDS THE WEEK I AM DUE*. Not a problem, right? Isn't this something we should have talked about sooner? My OB is totally not concerned because she is certain that I won't go to my due date with this baby (remember, she said that with William too...). So, we discussed our options and I think we have a plan that will work. Not a plan that I love, but a plan that will work.


*To be clear, my doctor deserves a vacation just like anyone else - more, in fact that some people I know. I'm just peeved because I just found out NOW about this scheduling problem. And it was after I asked her, not because she discovered the issue herself.


In other news, Grandma and Grandpa are arriving tonight for a birthday weekend celebration for the big boy. The big boy that is sleeping right now in his crib. Oh well.

Another reason to be thankful....

this would be post #3 for the day....make sure you scroll down. Although this is the only post with pictures and un crabbiness in it.

PS Yesterday was a disaster! I was in tears and decided we would go ahead and send him to college in his crib. John and talked it through and made some changes. Both the nap and BEDTIME went very well! I am so PROUD of our big boy!

PPS More details about what worked for us forthcoming. I'm not stupid enough to think we have it nailed after one good day/night. I'll talk to you about it sometime next week if we continue to do so well...

Thankful

I'm working on reminding myself to be thankful and not crabby. Here is a post I've been meaning to write, but haven't because I just haven't been feelin' all that thankful recently. Here is my try:


All of the thank you notes for our Christmas gifts have been written and sent out. We've published a letter in the Iowa City Citizen thanking people for their help on the day of our accident. We've written to thank the volunteer fire department and the family who came to the emergency room with shoes for William, a shirt for John and a bag of M& M's for me. However, there is another group of people out there who deserve a HUGELY public display of gratefulness from our family. In no particular order:

*To my mom who calmly handled the first (and subsequent) phone call from the ambulance

*To my family who dropped everything they were doing to come and get us after the accident

*To my mom who made some calls to some friends to find out about treating John's injury and then taking John all over town in order to satisfy our insurance requirements.

*To my mom who was SO calm for John during all those hours with the doctors and asking all the questions that needed to be asked.

*To my family for all the HOURS of William sitting you provided. Megan, Mike, Grandpa, & Grandma. You were huge lifesaver for us at a moment's notice. You allowed John and I to be together when we needed it most. You protected William from having to see John (and us) go through some very hard times. You changed work schedules and moved around commitments so William was always taken care of. And then? When the emergency was over? You STILL offered to watch William so we could go out to celebrate our anniversary, ring in the New Year and shop for a new car. AWESOME.

*To our extended families. We weren't exactly in holiday spirits this year. We weren't exactly in any spirits at all with the exception of the Stressed Out Spirit and Crabby Spirit. Yet, you helped us celebrate Christmas and for this we are glad. We will be able to look back at the pictures and see happiness was present this year at Christmas. I'm so glad William didn't have to celebrate with Stressed Out and Crabby by himself. That would have been a poopy Christmas all around.

*To my dad who went car shopping with us and "held our hands" along the way. We made some mistakes the first time around and you didn't let us (read:me) do it again this time.

*To Grandpa Heidt who allowed us to borrow the red wagon. When there are two cars and five people in a house needing to get to different places, it is very challenging.

*To all of you! You keep checking back on us even though I am crabby and ungrateful. I am thankful for you! AND

*For all of the prayers and thoughts that have been with our family over the last month. I know that John's healing and recovery are not entirely a result of his hard work alone. Your hard work has been paying off. Thank you.



Thank you....I'm getting there...instead of demanding SERENITY NOW! I'm more along the lines of Serenity soon, please.

You're Invited

to my pity party. I haven't been posting much this week because I've been busy. But, I've also been at a pretty sad pity party for one. I'm working on being thankful and recognizing the blessings we have not to mention how incredibly lucky we are. However, it is a struggle. Although John's recovery is going VERY well and he is working VERY hard there are still a lot of adjustments that we (I) are having to make about our routines*.

Because the doctors don't want John's hand to get wet or bumped in the area where the pins are located, a lot of the daily work has fallen to me. Which is okay, because I like to work hard. Just not all the time. It has been almost a month since our accident or roughly four weeks. It has been exactly that long since John has changed a diaper. Or washed dishes. Or given William a bath. Or been able to pick William up and hold him when he is crying. Or carry him to the car from a store. Or carry anything with two hands. What might be hardest of all is knowing I can't leave the house at by myself while William is awake for any length of time because John is simply not able to handle a diaper change on his own.

This has been difficult for me because John and I have been a team for a long time (we started dating in 1996 for those of you who keep track of these things which would equal almost 13 years). There are just some things that are unspoken: John takes care of dishes after dinner and empties all the garbage along with many, many other tasks. Always. Now things are different and I hate to admit that I'm not taking it well.

To add to the workload, I'm also trying to fight off the intense nesting bug. Before Christmas I had a mantra "We'll get the house together after Christmas. We'll focus on the house after Christmas..."

Only, now the major projects I had outlined for 2009 are either unable to be completed because of John's injury, because we spent a lot of our money we had set aside for house projects on a new car or because I'm now too crabby to tackle some of the projects by myself.

So, I'm frustrated. And crabby. And pregnant. And craving chocolate. A huge amount of chocolate. A vat of chocolate with a Diet Coke might just bring me out of the funk. But, I know that isn't the problem, so I'm trying not to overdo the sweets/caffeine thing (I'd be lying if I said I hadn't had ANY). All of my plans for moving/decorating/finishing/carpeting/etc are now on hold and I'm not handling it very gracefully. But, I'm working on it.


*To be clear, John is working very hard at his recovery. I am so proud and thankful that he is working so hard and doing so well with the healing. I am frustrated with the changes in our daily lives NOT with him (although he has taken the brunt of my frustration recently). He is now able to complete most tasks by himself without assistance. Early on, he needed help with everything (YES, EVERYTHING...how many hands does it take for you to take off your pants?).

**End is in sight. Pins will come out next week on Tuesday. I can't wait=understatement of the year.

Day 2 & 3 are...

a bust. He ended up in his crib for both nap times. Two and a half hours today was just too long and I lost my patience. He fell asleep right away once he got into the crib. Gah! We'll be trying it again tomorrow.




PS Even though I don't like doing this, I put one of those child proof door handle protectors on the inside of the door so he couldn't get out. I still found him in the living room trying to open the baby proof gate at the top of the stairs. He definitely isn't supposed to be able to figure out that one! I keep telling myself: He will do it eventually. He will do it eventually. He WILL do it eventually.


PPS Pictures of him waking up in his big boy bed are now posted here.

PPPS Pictures of John's hand and Xrays from two weeks ago are now posted here