Shh....

because my baby is napping in his Big Boy Bed! Can you believe it? Neither can we!

The big boy wakes up in his bed (I was WAY to nervous to take a picture of his actually sleeping).

** It was both harder and easier than I thought it would be. He took a long time to settle down and required me to be in there for a period of time (laying next to the bed, eyes shut, no interaction). However, he never got out of the bed and managed a 2 hour, 15 minute nap.

Updates

It has been a busy few weeks with all of our appointments. I meant to post about my 28 week OB appointment and John's appointment with the doctor, but time got away from me. Luckily, we have enough appointments in the next 6 weeks to fuel this blog on medical information alone. In order: John's stitch removal, Kelly's OB, John's 1st appointment with a hand dr in St Louis

1. As I mentioned before, I had to work really hard to find somewhere in the St Louis area to find ANYONE willing to take out the 6-7 stitches on John's fingers after surgery. Our surgeon assured us any general practitioner would be more than qualified to remove the stitches. However, no one we see regularly was willing to take out the stitches. A conservative guess would put the amount of time I spent on the phone booking this appointment right around 3 hours. Amazing when the actual stitch removal took about 4 minutes from beginning to end.

However, we were finally able to locate a place relatively close to us that was willing to take the stitches out in the time frame we needed. The bad news was that the doctor John would need to see was not a hand surgeon and wasn't going to be someone we would continue to see for follow up care.

The end result: stitches were removed last week on Monday and more X rays were taken. I'll post those pictures tomorrow at the bottom of this post for those of you who do not care to see the pins. The doctor we saw made a bunch of recommendations that were not in line with the surgeon's recommendations - and made some calls to find out what actually needed to happen.

The left hand with pins in
A hand comparison
An X Ray showing the pins in his finger. Yes, the pins go all the way through to the knuckle...

2. We went directly from the stitch removal appointment to my OB appointment. We had William with us as our child care had fallen through the night before. We were in and out of waiting rooms from 8am until about 11am that morning. All things considered, William was AMAZING and wonderful (note: not perfect, but pretty darn good).

This was my first visit with my OB after the accident and I had some concerns that needed to be addressed. In the end, there is lots of good news and no bad news. If something was going to happen with this pregnancy as a result of the accident, it would have happened in the first 24-48 hours after the accident occurred. All the tests they ran on me the evening of the accident didn't come up with anything at all (including not one, but two pelvic exams: FUN!, two ultrasounds, 6 hours of fetal monitoring, 6 vials of blood taken and tested, urine samples, cord blood pressure taken, amniotic fluid measurement, and old fashioned blood pressure readings).

The short version: I am not any more high risk now than I was at my appointment 4 weeks ago. Nothing has changed to make my doctor concerned about this pregancy or my health in general. Her biggest worry currently is the strain carrying/lifting William is causing my back/other parts. Unfortunatetly, it is looking like it will be two more weeks before John will be able to lift William and help me out with some of the heavy work that needs to be done. Other than that, the appointment was boring and normal without anything interesting to note.

3. John had his consultation with a hand specialist here in St Louis the morning. We were glad to be referred to someone our doctor knew personally and had worked with in the past. The appointment went well and this doctor felt John was making great progress. The doctor felt the pins needed another 2 weeks to fully allow the fractured finger to heal and so we made an appointment to return the day after William's birthday. The pin removal is supposed to be very easy (which I cannot understand). John won't be given any kind of pain medication - the pins will just be pulled out. The doctor assures us this is super simple/easy and John will be able to work for the rest of the day without problem. John is most excited because the doctor told him when the pins come out, he can keep them (ummm...yuck). We were sent on to physical therapy for a quick review of John's condition and exercises he should be working on.



PS For those of you who are interested, it is actually cheaper to delivery a baby the natural way with an epidural and stay overnight in the hospital than it is to have a finger reattached and stay 1 night in the hospital. Hospital bills for the surgery arrived yesterday. Now we wait to see what kind of fight lays ahead of us as the insurance companies start their work.

Crazy Jeff

Our friend Jeff is crazy enough to jump into Lake St Louis again this year for the Polar Bear Plunge. I've put up a fundraising button on the side of the blog if you would like to donate in support of Special Olympics. Last year his team of jumpers won the "Schools" category and he is hoping to take it again this year. Go Jeff!

Big Boy Bed, Phone

Quick update, I'll be back tomorrow with pictures because it is LATE. We bought the big boy mattress today and put it in his new room. He is so SO excited about it! And so are we!

The whole way home, we talked about how this was a new big boy bed for William to have. He was SO excited about it when we got home! When we walked in the door he said "My bed! Sleep! Blankets, pillows, big boy bed!" and he ran off to get some blankets to put on his bed Right Away so he could go to sleep. Very funny, only it was time to eat dinner and he wasn't happy about having to wait.
After we ate, we finished cleaning out his new room, put up the curtains and put the sheets on his new bed. Then we practiced using it. Here I am in bed with my babies reading books! We're going to take a few days this week to just talk about it and lay in the bed before we start actually using it. I am looking forward to having him out of the crib, but totally dreading the fact that he will be able to get out of the bed all by himself from now on. His room is going to be empty for a while until I can trust him not to injury himself on other pieces of furniture.

In other news, the phone problems have been worked out. We both have the same phone numbers and both of us have phones. However, if you call one of us for the next week or so, you'll be talking to me. After my phone was lost, we gave everyone John's phone number. John doesn't have access to his phone at work, so I'll be keeping his here for the time being to field insurance company calls.

And, just for fun, a few other pictures from this week!

William got Mr Potato Head for Christmas this year (which he LOVES). His favorite part about Mr Potato Head? The glasses. He loves to wear the glasses.
More glasses
Pushing the glasses up - maybe they need to be adjusted?
How funny (and true!) is this shirt? Thank you to Aunt Sheila and Uncle Bobby who picked this one up for William at the Grand Forks airport.
The belly button is starting to pop out...and the light was good the other day in our living room. William was not cooperating with my photo shoot ideas, so I had to turn the camera to NewBaby.
William saw the cat in the basket and decided he wanted to try to get in....
Turns out it was hard work to fit such a big boy into a little basket! Funny thing about those red socks: we're working on William making some of his own choices. We present (when time allows) two clothing options and he gets to choose one. Any time the red socks are an option, he picks them. Guaranteed. Every single time.
William's nest. I'm not sure how this one started (Daddy maybe?), but now we have to take all the available pillows and put them into a circle around William to make a "nest". After the nest is constructed you need to carefully sit in it and crow about your beautiful nest.

Craft Area/Big Boy Room Progress

These pictures are old. Probably at least a month old, but we got busy with other stuff. We haven't really be able to do anything in the last few weeks with everything else we've been having going on.

The start of William's big boy room. The room is emptied, painted, curtains are purchased as is the sheets and comforters. I have some fun stuff in mind to hang on the walls, but I don't have it figured out right now. And I'm not telling you what it is in case I change my mind (sometimes I do that) All that is missing is some furniture and...the big boy.

More big boy room. Please note, we do believe in outlet covers. Just not while painting. The covers are now back on.

The desk is moved in and now....we've made the other side a crafty area! John hung up these shelves for me to organize my craftiness and supplies.
The crafty corner. I have a cutting/ironing table, a sewing table and beautiful shelves on the wall. I've already spent many hours happily crafting away my Christmas projects this year.

2008, A year in Review

What a [mostly] great year! Here it is in order.....

23 months old: December 25th
22 Months Old: November 26
21 Months Old: October 26
20 Months Old: September 26

19 Months Old: August 26
18 Months Old: July 26th
17 Months Old: June 29th

16 Months Old: May 31st
15 Months Old: April 27th
14 Months Old: March 26th

13 Months Old: February 27th

12 Months Old! January 26

12th Night Party

We were invited to a 12th Night party ages ago and responded we would be there. Although it has been kind of a crazy few weeks, there didn't seem to be any reason why hanging out with some friends and acquaintances wouldn't be a good time this last weekend. We attended this same party and were a little overwhelmed when the hosts two teen aged sons greeted us at the door with full out black tuxedos. So this year we stepped it up a little and made more of an effort towards "formal". And then we booked a babysitter. Yay us!

What 28 weeks pregnant looks like on me. Rocking the almost double chin. Note to self: Lay off the brownies starting next week. Several people at the party did a very noticeable double take when I mentioned my due date is at the end of March. Although they did restrain themselves and not ask about the possibility of twins in there. I promise, there aren't two in there. Just Newbaby and my best friends brownies, cookies and ice cream.

Kelly and John sort of dressed up. This is John's current hand splint situation. Makes shirts tricky - otherwise I'm sure he would have been in tails. Or not. With the picture enlarged, you can see the beginnings of my outy belly button. Sure does make getting the lint out easier.