Pictures First ......







It seems forever since I have had 30 mins to myself. I have had some many thoughts of wanting to blog (for my sanity) and no time to actually do it.

S0 - Here I am having a few minutes to myself and hoping to get all that I wanted to blog out of my head.

Post Surgery - The first few days were pretty rough. They did give him anesthesia and an epidural .. Then before we left to go home, they gave him Tylenol with codeine. I was instructed to administer more doses every 4ish hours. I was not extremely comfortable giving him the Tylenol w codeine after I saw that it pretty much zonked him out. He was pretty drugged and unresponsive (unless he was pee-ing or had peed) So it was pretty challenging to get liquids in him. So the second day, I called and asked if I could try Motrin instead. Motrin seemed to be able to manage the pain and allow me to get him to eat. He only seemed to have discomfort when he peed. The first time he peed was absolutely heartbreaking. He screamed and screamed. After the second time of him screaming while peeing, We actually realized that he made this certain face. We were able to tell before he was going to pee therefore, we could be on the way to change the diaper to help the sting/burning We think he was feeling. By the third day, He would just get that look on his face of discomfort and no screaming. I was glad that he was feeling some relief. By the fourth day, I think he was just a little sore. The surgery also made him aware that there was "something" down there. He has never noticed it before. But Lately, he seems to have "found something" there. I am hoping that he will forget about it again for a while.

MT has regressed with taking naps. II have mention this before, it's been ever since I have started back to work .. It just got much worse this week. I am blaming surgery .. but I can't blame it for long. His naps this week, would only happen, by being rocked, swung, and soothed to sleep. I am hoping that He will be able to go back to just being laid down drowsy and sleep (w.o screaming his head off) I am unsure if I should be concerned or if this too shall pass .... My husband seems to think that this too shall pass ... He says it's a phase and a way to get comfort.

Christmas Eve -was hectic and I was stressed out trying to get to church on time to meet my parents. E was working and It is just simply hard to get me and an infant dressed up, packed up and arrive on somewhere on time. I tip my hat to all the Single moms out there. I am not sure how you do it.

Thursday night - Christmas night, We had dinner with the neighbors, like we do for Thanksgiving. With all the overstimulating company and whatnot, he did very well considering. He was cranky, whiny and clingy ... It was not the first Christmas I had imagined, but Life has a way of doing that. It's nothing like the movies (for me anyways) .. A few hours each day spent in a dark room trying to calm my child down from meltdown modes....

So that brings us to Friday. and with all of this cluster-overstimulating Christmas company and healing boy-part issues, I failed to notice the teething signs. Poor kid has both top teeth coming through. You can actually feel them .... So, After recovering from the surgery, We are now dealing with Teeth. Have I mention that MT does not do teething well. AT ALL ..... Rolls eyes...... I was so focused on getting through the issue at hand, I totally failed to recognize the teething signs. So, Yes Now teething.


Last night, my family had our Christmas dinner. Well, I should say, they had Christmas dinner and I had a screaming overstimulated tired, teething cranky baby on my hands. E and I ate dinner in shifts and then we quickly loaded up the car and practically ran out the door. MT was done. As soon as we got home, gave him a bath and fed him a bottle. He was just as happy as could be. Talking up an storm and smiling his lil face off. It's so hard to explain to others that he just needs a break from being passed around ... I am not sure why that is so hard for people to understand. And so far, if he cries at strangers they can't figure out why he is so whiny ........ And if I hear "he needs to get over that" .... one more time... I may punch someone ..... I told E that I was going to take the Tylenol w/ codeine to be able to enjoy the rest of the visits.

I better get ready to head out. My sister and grandmother are still in town and Want to spend as much time w/ MT as possible. I hope everyone had fairly decent time with your family.

Super Trooper

Last night was not a good night of sleep f or me. Apparently, I was more nervous then I realized. I went to bed late, laid there, then at 4:30am i woke up and could not go back to sleep. I tried to wake MT up to feed him. He was not having any of it.. He just would go right back to sleep. I tried and tried until about 6am. I am not sure I managed to get any real amounts of food in him ..

We left for the hospital around 6:40am and arrived around 7:20. We checked in and began waiting. Unfortunately, we waited until about 8:45/9am before they actually took him back for surgery. He actually did amazingly well. Considering his last real feeding was at 9pm last night. A few times we had to distract him from remembering it was time to eat but that was it really. He never had a meltdown about waiting. In check in - they told me that they would give him a bottle of sugar water after the surgery was over and he woke up. I asked if I could nurse him instead. The nurse informed me that since MT takes bottles they would just go ahead and try the sugar water .... I was annoyed but it was early and I was in no mood to argue. So I let it go. We said our goodbyes and the nurse carried him into the OR. He didn't cry, which helped ease my mind. My husband, on the other hand, was a wreck. You could see it all over him. We switched roles today. I think it is because I have had surgery and been in hospitals more than he has.





The dr came out about 55 mins and told us that he was done and they everything went well and that MT was on his way unto the PACU for recovery. He sent us to the nurses station to retrieve a pager so we would know when MT was ready for us to see him. About 25 mins later, my pager went off. Apparently, they tried to give him sugar water and he lost it. He was so pissed off by the time I got back there. I tried to explain to the nurse that he hates those rubber nipples on those hospital bottles. We realized that from when he was born and we had such a hard time feeding him with those nipples. I told the PACU nurse that I tried to explain that to the other nurse at check in but she wasn't interested in hearing me out. Regardless, I was able to nurse him and get his heart rate/blood pressure back down which was what the nurse was considered about. After he calmed down, I walked him to our post- op/waiting room. He saw my dad and was just bouncing with joy and glee. He babbled on and on to my father and ate a bottle and a half while we were waiting for the new nurse to send us on our way.

They send us home with instructions and some pain meds. He woke up at home a few hours ago and went to the bathroom and just screamed his little head off about it. The bandage fell off, we changed the diaper. And haven't had any signs of discomfort since. I am going to give him some of the pain meds tonight because I do not want him to wake up in the middle of the night in pain ..

Over all - pretty spectacular. Couldn't have asked for a better response from a 6 month old. We go back for a follow up visit in 2 weeks.

Proving I can leave the house before 9am

MT has surgery in the morning. (to correct some male related issues) I am not as nervous as I thought I would be, yet. I am sure tomorrow standing there in the hospital turning my baby over to the surgical team, that is when I will start panicking. I kept him up a little late tonight to try to get more fluids in him. I can breastfeed him until 6am. We have to be at the hospital at 7:30am. I am actually very nervous about his demeanor tomorrow morning after 6 am when I can no longer feed him. He is not a calm, mellow fellow when it comes to food. He is quite loud and demanding when he wants to eat. I think I am so nervous about that aspect of the morning that I haven't even allowed myself to get as far as thinking about the actual procedure and anesthesia part of the day. I did cling to him alittle tighter today. I did hold him pretty much every nap today ... Just because I can.

We actually made it to church this morning. Church is during one of his naptimes. Which is one reason why we haven't been much in the mornings. I was worried how this would work for us. But, he sat in my lap and played with his monkey, then got sleepy. He laid his head down on my shoulder while we were standing and singing. I put the blanket over him, bounced him and he just went to sleep until the service was over. I tried to get him in the car seat but that's when he woke up. He really is a good boy.

One good thing that returning to work p/t has done has allowed me to figure out how to get out of the house before 9am with my child. This weekend, we have left the house before 9am both mornings. Saturday morning, we went to a Christmas parade. The library had people giving books to children throughout the parade. I thought that was a fantastic idea. We walked away with a ton of books. MT was sleeping for the beginning when about 15 fire trucks and police vehicles were announcing the start of the parade with their sirens. This kid really could sleep through anything..

I started my period today. I can't wait until tomorrow. I can begin taking tylenol again. Since MT couldn't have any meds before his surgery, I figured I better not as well.... but boy could I use some cramp relief .... and SOON

I'll leave you with our christmas card for the yr:

I wish everyone a very blessed season.

If you have any input on car seats, please help those of us getting ready to purchase new ones.

Carseats .. Leave your opinions please

Thank you everyone for your support on my last post .. we are working through it. I think we have a few compounded reasons for all the mishappenings and slowly but surely we will just get through them all. We have had a pretty fun weekend. And nap/sleeping have been done with ease for now. No more biting .. Thank god because, I am not sure it could take anymore abuse like that for a while.

I measured MT yesterday to make sure that we were still within the limitations on his car seat. He was measuring ~29inches. (not sure what his weight is but it is no where near the 30lbs limit) With him being ~29 inches, I have 1 more inch to go before he outgrows the seat requirements. So I really need to on the ball and order a new car seat. I have been trying to get my husband to help with this decision, but he told me "buy what i wanted" ... GREAT.. too bad We weren't discussing cars, jewelry, or animals ... Not extremely helpful. So, I have some questions that maybe you experts could help me out on.

I know that the brit.ax seems to be a popular choice. The rou.ndabout seems to have a lower height max than the marat.hon by 9 inches. That seems to be the major difference ... Oh and that Money thing. That's about $80 difference depending what website and week it is. But I know there are other car seats besides brit.ax.

Now here is my questions:

Do/Did you use your second car seat until your child is/was 49inches/65lbs?

What I am asking is, in the practical exercise, did you really use your car seat for that long? ~4 yrs for the same child? Is it likely to happen?

I want a safe car seat, I do not want to cut corners on safety, but I want to make sure that I send my money wisely. Consumer reports rates the eve.nflo triump.h line at a higher ranking than the br.itax. (could that be because of the money savings?) The ev.enflo is rank 1 the rou.ndabout is rank 2. The rou.ndabout received a very good for infant belt crash whereas the evenflo received an excellent .. They are $100 difference. This is a big difference. The overall rankings for both are the same score. The ma.rathon is ranked 4th. It only received a good rating in the infant latch crash protection and fair in the infant latch fit in vehicles. (i assume that is because the seat's dimensions are large to accommodate a 65lb'er). The overal mar.athon ranking was 30 points less than the 1-2 ranked.

Ok with all that said. There is a new evenflo symphony that has caught my eye. It's a new car seat that goes from 5-100 lbs. It's pretty new, not a whole lot of positive feedback from it. But it is new ... Anyone else see it? What are ordering, going to order? Have thoughts? What convertible seats are you using? There are tons ... Give me your opinions

wholatta changes going on

This past week We have been having some not-so-typical scenarios with MT. In fact last night, i actually said out loud "Who is this child and what have they done with my baby". ..

Over the past week, My husband and I have took turns watching him since I returned to work p/t. On my first day off last week, MT pretty much flat out refused to sleep for naps. I thought maybe he was actually getting sick. Not that I was wishing sickness on him, but I received a memo from the urologists office that stated I could not give MT, any immunizations, Motrin, Tylenol, or any herbal medications for 2 weeks prior to his surgery and If he was to get sick, we would have to reschedule .. So i figured Murphy's law was going to play into effect here.

So I kept checking his temp throughout that day, but he never had a fever. So I figured, it was just going to be "that kind of day". Well, the next day .. I received the same reactions of meltdowns when placing him down for naps ... He would get a little mad, grunt, start working up the cries then would hit def-con level around 10 minutes of attempting a nap.

I figured it must be just another one of those days. Well this pattern has now continued for a week and a day. (this is how long I have been back to work) So I figure now thre is a reason for this .... I am just unable to pinpoint exactly why.

Now def-con level is reached ~2 minutes of attempting to give him a nap and is now spilling over into bedtime. So FUN TIMES at the Fertilized household.

I have put alot of brain power in trying to figure out how to "fix" the problem. Today, I told my husband, to try and offer him more food, Maybe he is hungry. We will see if that helps anything.

Before all of this, We had a really good established bedtime pattern. So last night, we attempted the bedtime gear up ... bathed, pj's, some bfing, diaper check and then I place him down, awake but calm .... put the blanket over his head ..... a few minutes later, he enters dream world ...

Last night was our absolute worst night thus far in 6 months. We did everything like normal. He was fine at first .. then all hell broke loose ... he started to gnash, wraith and fuss .. So I stopped bf-ing him and was trying to figure out what was wrong.... I look back now and think he almost fell asleep and was trying to keep himself awake. He started rooting for more bf-ing so I held him and got him latched back on .... next thing I remember was he bit the crap out of me so freaking hard that I yelped, screamed, pushed him towards my chest and flicked him in the face all at the same time .... He Laughed ... I was DONE ..I looked down and there was blood all over his face, his pj's, my tanktop etc... I was beyond pissed off and in pain .. E took him and placed him in his bed. MT screamed and screamed and screamed some more ... I felt horrible, guilty, confused, pissed, sad, desperate, etc.

E said that he needed to lay there and cry for a good few minutes. I was in pain and cleaning myself up that I actually found myself agreeing to let my child lay there and cry for a while. After standing near the door watching/listening to him for a while, I went in there and rubbed his stomach and face trying to get him to calm down. He screamed harder and louder. I flipped him over on his tummy and tried patting his little bottom .. he still continued to scream and scream ... I just finally had enough. I picked him up, tried swaddling him and shushing. It worked for a while, then he lost it all over again ..... After about a hour of this, I offered him a 2oz bottle, he drank 1 oz and conked out ....

I am not sure if this is the new norm, a phase, an effect of my going back to work part time, teething, or an unknown variable that we do not even know about yet. What I do know is that what ever this is .. It is not in the least bit enjoyable ... We will pull through, We will survive. We will. But Man o' man, what a challenge.

I am looking forward to being off work for a week. I am not looking forward that in that time off I have to take MT to have surgery Monday.

Sweater Christmaweseomeness

I read the funniest thing off another blog that originated on Jon Acuff's blog over at http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/

Please enjoy:
I think all women over the age of 40 have a hidden walk-in closet built into their houses that is full of bedazzled, bejeweled, and bespangled (which is a real word…click the link if you don’t believe me) Christmas sweaters. The day after Thanksgiving, they go into their secret chamber of wooly Christmas spirit and arrange the shelves of the closet like an advent calendar of sweatery splendor. They adorn each one proudly, with the majesty and merriment of all the snow angels in the world.

So, here’s the big question: how can you know if your Christmas sweater is truly Christmawesome?

Official Point System of Sweater Christmaweseomeness:
1. If your sweater has a nativity scene = +1 point

2. If your sweater has lights on it = +1 point

3. If your light is for Rudolph’s nose = -1 point

4. If your light is for the star of Bethlehem over your nativity scene = +4 points

5. If your sweater has actual bells and whistles from the Polar Express tied on by pieces of yarn = +2 points

6. If you can hear the bells = -2 points

7. If every time one of the bells rings, you get excited because an angel just got its wings = + 1 point

8. If your sweater has Luke 2 written out on it (the entire chapter) = +3 points

9. If it is KJV = +2 points

10. If it is actually a puff paint sweatshirt, which is really just a Christmas sweater wannabe = -3 points

11. If your sweater was knitted from the wool of a Bethlehemian sheep = +5 points

12. If you have more than 5 snowmen/women on your sweater = +2 points (+1 point for each additional snowperson)

13. If any of your snowmen are inspired by Calvin and Hobbes = +4 points

14. If it is a maternity sweater that reads “Mary is My Homegirl” = +10 points

15. If your sweater has stockings with your kids’ names on it = +1 point for each child

16. If the stockings are your kids’ used socks = -2 points for each sock

17. If it has a 3-D hologram of baby Jesus on it = +3 points

18. If it has candy canes on it = -4 points… I’m going to use this platform of SCL to take a stand against candy canes, a.k.a. carnage canes. Candy canes become sharp and dangerous once licked. It's like putting an ice pick in your mouth and poking it around. I'm sorry, but if I want the flavors of mint and blood to mix in my mouth, I'll go to the dentist. This injustice needs to stop now, so we're starting a boycott of candy canes effective immediately. I think it’s the Southern Baptist roots in me that really wanted to start a boycott. That’s why I started Humans Against Candy Knives, or H.A.C.K. Join the fight on the Facebook group I started.

19. If it has any other kind of cane on it= +2 points. This could be one of the wise men’s canes, sugar canes, or even hurricanes. Just as long as they’re not candy canes.

How did you score?

0-3 points= Sorry to break the news, but you might be a cotton-headed ninny-muggins.

4-7 points= You’re rockin’ a mighty fine piece of holiday merriment, my friend. Just don’t wear your sweater and your light up reindeer antlers at the same time. That would be tacky.

8-10 points= “Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor, and clothe yourself in honor and majesty.” –Job 40:10

11-13 points= Bill Cosby called. He wants his sweater back.

14+ points= You are the embodiment of Christmawesomeness. There are probably three men coming from afar to shower you with gifts as you read this.Less than zero points= Apparently you love candy canes.

How Christmawesome are your Christmas sweaters? Please post links in the comments section to a picture of you sporting your sweater.

a white flag?

i re-read my last post and I wanted to clarify that just because some times the eyes instantly shut, this does not mean that the cries or tears do ;) It just can't be that simple ..... I wish. But I do feel that as time goes on, The naps come easier and the days get more fluid. ... Some days.

I witnessed my cute lil baby totally play into my husband yesterday. I was off to the grocery store and We were having a rough morning of screaming and tears for no reason we were able to figure out. I called E to let him know that I was on my way home and could still hear a screaming child in the background (i left 55 mins ago)... E said that MT still did not want to be put down at all. So E was playing with him while holding him on the floor. I was dragging the groceries in and E wanted to jump in the shower. I told E to just put him in the exersaucer, I was almost done, I would grab him as soon as I had all the cold things put away. MT screamed as if E had slammed his hands in a car door ... Until E walked away from him ...... As soon as E was out of his sight line, He stopped crying and started playing with the toys on the saucer. THIS IS HUGE For us .. MT has NEVER actually stopped crying before on his own with some one having to do something about it. To say that he comes complete with my stubbornness would be an understatement. I felt so giddy with glee that he actually stopped crying on his own ..... Granted it was the first time I actually remember him stopping on his own w/o getting what he wanted but I am proud none the less. I hope that means that we will get a few more of these situations where he is able to do this in the future. Normally if he gets to crying and being upset, He will outlast the energizer bunny unless we cave .... but yesterday, he retreated .. and I feel more confident that there is room to learn and adjust.