Junk Drawer 7/25/2012

One of ‘Em

Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Captain America, Iron Man…pretty much everyone in the Avengers…and Pepper. Yep, you can put my name in that list of Super Heroes. Or any list of Super Heroes. As a matter of fact if you list more than one mom’s name in a row chances are you’ve already made a list of Super Heroes.

I’m pretty new to this Super Hero game so my feats of heroism (in my mind) are mundane day to day tasks for other moms…in other words…just life. But that doesn’t stop the insane feeling of pride and accomplishment I get when I come home from a day of work and pumping breast milk for my baby and spend the 20 minutes I have to myself straightening the living room, vacuuming, putting up the clean dishes, straightening the dining room and then cleaning out the truck. Then we go pick up the Ninos and I spend the evening cleaning the kitchen, cooking dinner, feeding Joey every 5 minutes (not literally), telling Jimmy “No!” or “Stop!” every 2.5 minutes (literally!), changing Jimmy’s diaper, changing Joey’s diaper, then changing Joey’s diaper again, giving Jimmy a bath, then actually eating dinner, then cleaning up after dinner, fist bumping Jimmy approximately 5,280 times, burping Joey, cuddling Joey and hoping Jimmy isn’t jealous, putting Jimmy to bed with lots of kisses, good-bye waves and fist bumps, falling asleep on the couch trying to figure out what I’m wearing tomorrow…then waking up to feed Joey again.

But it doesn’t end there…

I go to bed, get up every two hours to feed/burp/change Joey, and then get up at 5 to cook breakfast, prepare my “pumping bag”, the boys diaper bag, get Jimmy’s sippy cup of milk, find their clothes, get dressed, get Jimmy up, change and dress him while he has his sippy cup of milk, change and dress Joey, feed Joey, put the bags in the truck while Jimmy freaks out about what toy he thinks he can take to the sitter but he really can’t, take the boys to say good-bye to Daddy, load the boys up, unload them at the sitter, then make it to the train on time.

All of that probably makes me a normal mother of two but it certainly feels like a Super Hero.


Mexican Fiesta Marinade

We tried this last night on chicken in the oven. The original plan was to grill it but we were both tired and it was hot so we decided to just bake the chicken instead. I put the chicken in the glass dish, mixed the marinade and poured it over the chicken. Let it set in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes while I fed Joey. Then baked it in the oven at 400 for an hour, turning the chicken once.

It turned out pretty well. I wouldn’t put it in my all time favorite seasonings list but it was good and a nice change. I’d still like to try it grilled.


Swiss Brain

Poor Joey. Well, really poor everyone that I’m responsible for caring for. I may be a Super Hero in my head but its probably only because my memory is so full of holes these days that I can’t remember how much I forget.

I feed Joey about every two hours. Sometimes its less and sometimes its more…but most often it’s two hours on the dot and he’s letting me know its time to eat. I’m glad he remembers because sometimes he’ll start fussing and I’m not sure why – it certainly can’t have been two hours already! I look at the clock but that’s not helpful because I can’t even remember what I was doing two hours ago and the harder I concentrate on remembering what I was doing the more I can't remember. When I finally determine that it must have been two hours already and he really is hungry then I can’t remember what side I fed him on last. Seriously? You would think that wouldn’t be too difficult to remember and two hours goes by in a flash…how on earth could I forget what side I fed him on?? Poor little guy! I’m pretty sure he’s gotten the “empty” side a few times. But I’m never for sure because I CAN’T REMEMBER!!!

I'm not worried about him though - he's obviously gotten the "full" side plenty of times too!



Big boy!



A Hospital Stay

Little Joey is such a good baby. So laid back and easy going. He loves to watch the world around him when he’s awake – which is more often now – and loves to eat and sleep. So Saturday evening (the 14th) when he seemed a little fussier than usual I assumed it was a gassy issue. I would burp him to infinity and beyond hoping to ease his discomfort. And we did get some pretty good burps out and he would snuggle back up and be happy again.

That night though around 1 am (early morning technically) he woke up really fussy and then screaming and wouldn’t nurse. I again thought it was gas and tried to burp him but instead of calming down he got more upset. I finally realized he seemed warmer than normal so I ran to find a thermometer and took his temp and it was 102.2! I called the pediatricians office and left a message for the pediatrician on call. When she called back and asked his age she said I needed to take him to the emergency room immediately.

Apparently when babies under 2 months have a temp over 100.4 they have to go to the hospital and get the work up done. Their immune systems are not mature enough yet to handle even a simple virus like a common cold.

So off we went, just me and Joey while Daddy stayed home with Jimmy. We got checked in and the nurse in triage checked his temp and yep he still had one so we were shown to a room.

I was feeling so bad for him and worried about what they were going to do to him, what kind of tests they would run and what the results would be. Two nurses came in and told me what the immediate future held for us. They would insert a catheter to take a urine sample, then they would do a spinal tap, insert an IV and take blood for labs. Then one of them said “he won’t like us very much for a little while”. I laughed and said “I won’t either” and then cried. Then I patted her arm and assured her that I was kidding. Sorta. Not really.

I tried to distract myself by texting people while they did the catheter and it worked pretty well. They got it in, got the pee and got it out pretty quickly. Then the Dr came in to do the spinal tap. Poor Joey, he didn’t know what was going on and people were holding him down and doing things to him that didn’t feel good and he didn’t feel good and Mamma seemed to have disappeared. He was getting so tired and was almost cried out.

It took the Dr two tries to get spinal fluid and little Joey was being held hunched over in the most uncomfortable looking position. I didn’t cry…probably because I had already cried earlier…but my heart broke for him. It was so pitiful.

As awful as that was I think the most traumatic thing was finding a vein for the IV. They finally, finally found one and got the line in and then couldn’t get much blood out…certainly not enough for labs. So they sent another guy in to find a vein. After about 10 minutes of rubber bands squeezed around his legs and arms and a few futile pokes the guy gave up and said he would send someone else in. While we were waiting another man came and got us and took us for a chest x-ray.

Not long after we got back to the room a lady came in to try to find a vein again. It wasn’t very reassuring that she kept referring to him as “she” and “her” and called him “pretty”. Even after she asked if he was a boy or girl she called him “her”. Her method of finding a good vein was simple….just poke until you get one. Thank God it only took her two tries and she found the mother lode.

We were both so exhausted and I wasn’t sure what else they were going to do, how long it was going to take and no one in the world seemed to be awake except for me, Joey and the hospital staff.

Somewhere in there another Dr came in and said that the early results of the spinal fluid labs showed that he probably had meningitis but that we would have to wait 48 hours for the cultures to be sure that it wasn’t bacterial.
Right before we were transported upstairs to our room the nurse came back in and did a nasal swab to check for different viruses. And then it was over. We were finally moved upstairs and into our own room where Joey had a bed and Mamma had a bed and there was no more poking.

Joey didn’t feel good for a couple of days and had to have Tylenol suppositories every four hours for awhile to help with the fever and just general crummy-ness. He did express his feelings about the suppositories quite dramatically in the middle of the night on Monday. He had a blowout right as the nurse was putting it in and poop was everywhere! That showed her!

The final results were that he had rhino virus (found with the nasal swab) and viral menengititis (found with the spinal fluid cultures). Thankfullly it wasn’t anything bacterial and he was able to go home Tuesday afternoon.

We are so grateful for everyone’s prayers, encouragement and support and we were so happy to get home.

Sweet Video

This video is a little on the long side but I think it is a super sweet video of my two boys.  I took the video on my phone so the quality probably isn't great and it might be shaky but hopefully you can still see how sweet my babies are.

Dr-unk J-awer 07/23/2012

I said it wrong in my head recently and it sounded funny so I had to use it.

Work
I’m back at work today and it’s a grab bag of mixed feelings. I’ve missed blogging terribly and although I had a computer and internet at home I couldn’t seem to tear myself away from Life to document it. Now that I’m back at work I can goof off properly and document Life to my hearts content.

I also love paying my bills…or rather having enough money to pay my bills and 60% of my normal checks just isn’t what I’m used to.

However, coming back to work meant dropping off my littlest nino at the sitter for the first time. In all honesty it wasn’t as difficult as I imagined it would be. I think it helped in a way that I had been through it before, I already know the sitter really well and he’s not there by himself. Jimmy may not be old enough to protect him or care for him but just knowing that he’s there with his big brother made it a lot easier to leave him this morning. It did feel surreal though and I’m definitely looking forward to picking them both up this afternoon.

Blog
No one probably noticed but I changed the name of my blog again. I think this is the last time...I think. I didn’t change the URL yet because I wanted to give everyone advance notice. The new blog name is The “J” Files and I’ll post a new URL soon….just giving you heads up.

2 Boys
I love having two kids, specifically two boys. I can’t wait to update you all on all the happenings and the going ons…and of course share a gazillion pictures and videos of Jimmy and Joey.