So we just returned home from our family vacation to Arkansas.....
We left on the afternoon of June 17th and returned the evening of June 26th. It was a great time and it went by way too quickly! During the drive there Raymond and I were so anxious to get to Ozark and see our loved ones we drove straight through.....yes that's right.....19 hours only stopping for gas and caffeine. We didn't want to waste a minute longer driving when we could be there instead. The boys did remarkable on the way there. They both slept through the night and Blake was very well behaved when they were awake. Joe... he is another story. I don't know what happened to my sweet Joe.....he is still sweet, adorable, and totally lovable, but I feel the terrible 2's approaching us. He was fine if you were looking at him and talking to him, but the second that boy feels ignored he lets you know about it. Joe can go from total devastation...in tears barely able to breath, to laughing and chatting with you in a matter of seconds. I think he knows how to work it? He is so irresistible though :)
The vacation there was wonderful! Lots of family, visiting, fun, food (the scale increased 7lbs to prove this), site seeing (at least for myself this small town ND girl has never been anywhere), and a little shopping of course.
The drive home did NOT goes as smoothly. We left Memphis around 2:30pm and headed back with the intent of the boys sleeping through the night, so we could drive home like the drive there went. The boys did fall asleep, but much later then the last trip. Because of all the flooding around Omaha, NE we detoured on our trip to Arkansas which caused about an extra 2 hours of driving. We went to Albert Lea, MN got on interstate 35 drove through Des Moines, IA and headed to Kansas City, MO. The typical route is to go to Sioux Falls, SD and get on interstate 29 drive through Sioux City, IA and Omaha, NE to Kansas City, MO. The signs said 35 is a better way because 29 was closed off in some parts. It went very slick on the way there. For some ridiculous reason on the way home when we arrived in Kansas City, MO Raymond thought it would be better to stay on interstate 29 and use their detours.......I should of went with my womanly instincts and stopped him from that stupid decision, but for the fear of irritating him and still having 11 hours in the car together I said, "okay hun". We arrived to the areas where the interstate was closed off.....some locals told us to get on a highway along the side of the interstate to drive around it and to get back on 29 when the closed off areas ended. So it's like 1am and we get out the trusty map and I get on this highway 59 to head north. Pretty sure I ended up driving backwards (south) to the town we had already drove through :) Lucky for us it was only like a 15 minute mistake. At that point we decided we better just call it a night and get a hotel room.
It was morning and off we went with still about 10 hours to go and we wanted to make good time, so we could regroup at home a few hours before going back to real life on Monday. It was my turn to do some driving, so we headed north on this little IA hwy 59. I was driving along, Raymond instructed me just to stay on the highway and drive north while he napped. I did this or so I thought I was. Suddenly, I ended up in a town called Atlantic, IA hmmm.... I don't remember Raymond mentioning Atlantic??......and then I noticed the hwy was not 59, but 71? Oh no! I pulled over and looked at the map, and yes I drove about an hour the wrong way. Raymond was still sleeping, so I nervously woke him to tell him my mistake, he was not impressed with me as we are all ready to get home and this obviously put a delay in the trip. BUT.............. because he loves me sooo sooo much, he mumbled a few things under his breath so I couldn't hear him and we revisited the map. While we were looking at the map an Officer pulled up behind us to make sure everything was okay.......he showed us where we were at on the map and pointed us in the right direction. Thank you Officer!!! Off we went, with basically an entire morning of driving wasted due to my error. I was teased by Raymond for a good hour about this.......of course in my defense of making this his fault and not mine....... I explained to him how this was his fault for not taking interstate 35 in Kansas City to began with. I had to blame this on him some how! He did not buy it. Poor Raymond, but bless his heart for being so gracious with me about my ditzness. He has to deal with this often people.
Well we made it home, a few bumps along the way, but we got here! I really enjoyed the drive...honestly I'm not being sarcastic, it was long, but so wonderful to spend all that quality time with my babies and my hunny. Raymond and I haven't had a chance to sit down and visit like that in forever and it made me appreciate my life again! I love our conversations.....joking and laughing, talking about our big ideas for the future, and our serious conversations. He is my bestest friend :) I will post another blog about our actual vacation part and get some pictures up later this week! Lots to share with you guys :)
Also, lets keep in our prayers all the people effected by the floods and tornadoes. During this trip I seen a lot of damage from both these mother nature nightmares. It was so devasting to see......but it made me realize how lucky I am to have a roof over my head. A lot of families right now in our country don't! Seeing it up close and in real life is much different than watching it on the news and seeing it in the newspapers. Prayers their way!!!!
Picture taken by the lovely Janel Johnson at Janel Johnson Photography
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
Kids Say the Funniest Things Sometimes!
Blake told me the funniest thing the other day and I smile everytime I think back to it, so I must share. Raymond, Blake, and I were sitting on our bed visiting during my lunch break on Friday. Raymond was trying to get him down for a nap and I kind of ruined his efforts.
For no particular reason Blake pointed to his thigh and said to me, "JuJu (that's what he calls me), this is where my brain is." I said, "Your brain is in your thigh?" and he nodded his head yes. I said, "I think you brain is in here (I was pointing to my head)." Blake said to me in a scolding tone, "No it's not JuJu! It is in your leg right here (pointing to his thigh again)!"
The seriousness in his tone and on his face was so priceless.......where do they come up with this stuff? So cute!
For no particular reason Blake pointed to his thigh and said to me, "JuJu (that's what he calls me), this is where my brain is." I said, "Your brain is in your thigh?" and he nodded his head yes. I said, "I think you brain is in here (I was pointing to my head)." Blake said to me in a scolding tone, "No it's not JuJu! It is in your leg right here (pointing to his thigh again)!"
The seriousness in his tone and on his face was so priceless.......where do they come up with this stuff? So cute!
Friday, June 10, 2011
Monitors
One of my close preemie Mom friends and I were having a conversation regarding her son's surgery he had on June 8th. Which was a success :) We ended up getting into a deeper conversation about how scary it is....surgery....vents....monitors.....vitals.......etc. It brings back scary NICU memories :( After this conversation it got me thinking a lot about how crazy it is that an object can have such a huge impact on your emotions, feelings, hopes, and fears. Your relationship with an nonliving organism becomes real and somewhat human. This particular object to me is a monitor.
I know that sounds completely crazy, but there is good reason behind things sometimes. I do not believe my blog followers are ignorant, but I will give a brief low down on what a monitor is for those without a medical background ( Raymond and I's knowledge of this field was forced upon us, so do not feel bad if you don't know what this is!). A monitor, well.....it's shaped like a computer screen or a TV, but it serves sooo much purpose for the medical team. Basically on this screen you can monitor the patients pulse, respiration's (amount of breaths being taken), and O2 sats. O2 sats from what I gathered during the babies NICU stay means the percentage of oxygenated blood in your body (this was always the big one to me). 100% is perfect 1% you are near your end to put it bluntly. I am sure the monitor can do a million other amazing things, but those are the 3 important main reasons for it, at least for myself. They monitor those body's states by attaching what is called "leads" to the patient. Leads are the sticky circular shaped things sticking on the patients chest... like what you see on movies and the thin cords coming from them attaches to a device attached to the monitor and that is how it reads those 3 states in your body. I am sure there is much more intelligent terminology for what I just described, but I am not the lady to give those words to you...haha! For my many many medically intelligent friends out there do not hesitate to correct me if I am wrong about any of the above. You will not offend me at all but enlighten me and the other readers :)
Back to my point........I have a love/hate relationship with monitors. For me they symbolized much more then what your body's systems were doing. When the monitor is "good" and alarms aren't going off like mad that means you are getting better and your loved one gets to go home sooner than later. When the numbers aren't good and the alarms are going off constantly that means your loved one (our babies in my case) are sick and they have to stay in the hospital or they need greater assistance...this brings me to my other hated item, the VENT (that is whole new blog post that I will probably never do because my human relationship with the vent has a lot of not nice things to say!) I remember when I was in the NICU, I stared at the monitor like a complete psycho for hours and hours. I just sat there, rocked my babies, and stared at their monitors. Whatever those monitor were saying when I left determined my feelings for the rest of the day/night. Sometimes when I was holding one of my babies I would see a number get almost or right close to setting the alarm off and I would beg the monitor in my mind to not let it go off......"please baby just breath so it goes back up!"...or..."don't you dare set the alarm off you stupid monitor!" There were several occasions where one of my babies would totally crash (that is horrible by the way)........I was standing there and all of the sudden an alarm goes off and all those number start rapidly dropping....and dropping.....and dropping. You feel like your heart fell to your feet and you quit breathing with each number going lower and before you know it everyone in the room is gathered around my baby trying too, "bring them back". They are bagging or intabating or whatever they can do to get them going! Whenever this would happen in front of me I won't even look at my baby, I would stand there and stare at the monitor begging it in my head to go up..Up..UP. I've seen that monitor have numbers less than double digits or not being read at all and it's so hard ...so scary to see. It symbolize so much to what is important to everyone that loves the patient.
I have also loved the monitor. Those beautiful sats.....97% - 100%!!!! :) Turn the oxygen down and it stays.........98% it barely even changes a number!!!! I could practically skip around just talking about how happy and exciting it makes everyone feel! Woohoo! Good job monitor! It's like hitting the big one on a slot machine! Then you are told if baby can breath without oxygen it will be soon they can go home, or baby is breathing over the vent and sats are good....we can extabate (take the vent tube out and let them breath nasal canula). Those were the happy moments, but I must admit sometimes I stared at the monitor during those times, "don't you dare screw this up monitor!!!" Sometime it listened sometimes it didn't. Regardless, I have been on both sides of the fence with it.
The reality is, it's not the monitor that is causing the numbers it was my babies, but it was just the bizarre relationship I couldn't help but establish. I do not believe I am the only person that has viewed an object in certain circumstances as kind of a "human relationship" or like, if I really think this in my mind maybe it will listen to my thoughts and do what I want it to do. I mean we have all kicked and yelled at a pop machine right? No I wasn't talking to it or cuddling it to make the monitor like me......it was just the way my mind, heart, and feelings wrapped around it.....the monitor of all things. The results on the monitor, well that is up to the patient and of course a much higher power than any of us are!
I know that sounds completely crazy, but there is good reason behind things sometimes. I do not believe my blog followers are ignorant, but I will give a brief low down on what a monitor is for those without a medical background ( Raymond and I's knowledge of this field was forced upon us, so do not feel bad if you don't know what this is!). A monitor, well.....it's shaped like a computer screen or a TV, but it serves sooo much purpose for the medical team. Basically on this screen you can monitor the patients pulse, respiration's (amount of breaths being taken), and O2 sats. O2 sats from what I gathered during the babies NICU stay means the percentage of oxygenated blood in your body (this was always the big one to me). 100% is perfect 1% you are near your end to put it bluntly. I am sure the monitor can do a million other amazing things, but those are the 3 important main reasons for it, at least for myself. They monitor those body's states by attaching what is called "leads" to the patient. Leads are the sticky circular shaped things sticking on the patients chest... like what you see on movies and the thin cords coming from them attaches to a device attached to the monitor and that is how it reads those 3 states in your body. I am sure there is much more intelligent terminology for what I just described, but I am not the lady to give those words to you...haha! For my many many medically intelligent friends out there do not hesitate to correct me if I am wrong about any of the above. You will not offend me at all but enlighten me and the other readers :)
Back to my point........I have a love/hate relationship with monitors. For me they symbolized much more then what your body's systems were doing. When the monitor is "good" and alarms aren't going off like mad that means you are getting better and your loved one gets to go home sooner than later. When the numbers aren't good and the alarms are going off constantly that means your loved one (our babies in my case) are sick and they have to stay in the hospital or they need greater assistance...this brings me to my other hated item, the VENT (that is whole new blog post that I will probably never do because my human relationship with the vent has a lot of not nice things to say!) I remember when I was in the NICU, I stared at the monitor like a complete psycho for hours and hours. I just sat there, rocked my babies, and stared at their monitors. Whatever those monitor were saying when I left determined my feelings for the rest of the day/night. Sometimes when I was holding one of my babies I would see a number get almost or right close to setting the alarm off and I would beg the monitor in my mind to not let it go off......"please baby just breath so it goes back up!"...or..."don't you dare set the alarm off you stupid monitor!" There were several occasions where one of my babies would totally crash (that is horrible by the way)........I was standing there and all of the sudden an alarm goes off and all those number start rapidly dropping....and dropping.....and dropping. You feel like your heart fell to your feet and you quit breathing with each number going lower and before you know it everyone in the room is gathered around my baby trying too, "bring them back". They are bagging or intabating or whatever they can do to get them going! Whenever this would happen in front of me I won't even look at my baby, I would stand there and stare at the monitor begging it in my head to go up..Up..UP. I've seen that monitor have numbers less than double digits or not being read at all and it's so hard ...so scary to see. It symbolize so much to what is important to everyone that loves the patient.
I have also loved the monitor. Those beautiful sats.....97% - 100%!!!! :) Turn the oxygen down and it stays.........98% it barely even changes a number!!!! I could practically skip around just talking about how happy and exciting it makes everyone feel! Woohoo! Good job monitor! It's like hitting the big one on a slot machine! Then you are told if baby can breath without oxygen it will be soon they can go home, or baby is breathing over the vent and sats are good....we can extabate (take the vent tube out and let them breath nasal canula). Those were the happy moments, but I must admit sometimes I stared at the monitor during those times, "don't you dare screw this up monitor!!!" Sometime it listened sometimes it didn't. Regardless, I have been on both sides of the fence with it.
The reality is, it's not the monitor that is causing the numbers it was my babies, but it was just the bizarre relationship I couldn't help but establish. I do not believe I am the only person that has viewed an object in certain circumstances as kind of a "human relationship" or like, if I really think this in my mind maybe it will listen to my thoughts and do what I want it to do. I mean we have all kicked and yelled at a pop machine right? No I wasn't talking to it or cuddling it to make the monitor like me......it was just the way my mind, heart, and feelings wrapped around it.....the monitor of all things. The results on the monitor, well that is up to the patient and of course a much higher power than any of us are!
Monday, June 6, 2011
Busy
Okay, so I am way way over due to blog. So much has happened too!
In April sickness overtook my household for some reason........Poor Raymond injured his lower back, ironically it was at the same time his Dad injured his back too! Fortunately, they both got it fixed and are feeling much much better now. After that little Joe got very very sick. He had an unexplained fever and was throwing up, so of course like the total nut that I am we rushed to the ER. After a lot of tests and a long night in the ER they ruled out his shunt being infected. What a relief! After that Raymond and I realized that we can't overact with him so much. Kids get sick.....that's just the way life goes. So from now on when he acts like he has the "flu" I'm going to wait a few days. If it gets better he is fine....if it stay the same or gets worse it may be his shunt. At that point I will take him in. It's so hard when you've had so many horrible things happen to you children. It's hard for us not to over react with baby Joe! He is so special and important! After Joe's sickness it was my turn I guess. I hurt my back too! It was near my right shoulder blade. It was one of the most painful things that I have ever experienced. I missed 2 days of work and it took 6 chiropractor appointments to get it fixed. I will never forget that in my life! I couldn't even care for Joe, he had to go stay the night with our friends and my Mom had to take him to and from daycare. Plus my poor Mom had to drive me all around because I couldn't even drive! Glad that month is behind us!
May was hectic too. Lots of birthdays, Mother's Day, and graduations. We celebrated a very special birthday party on May 21nd. Blake turned 4 yrs old!!! His real birthday is on May 24th, but we wanted to have a party during the weekend. It was so fun and robot themed! Blake loves robots! He loves vacuums and cleaning too...haha! Some friends and kids came over. He got spoiled with lots of presents and sweets. After Blake's party we got to go to another birthday party for little Jackson. At Jackson's party we got to go swimming and sit in the hot tub :) It was a busy but very fun day for everyone!
So far in June it's been Joe with the busy schedule. Joe was fitted for his leg braces and they should be done on June 10th. These braces will go just below the knee. The braces plastic will wrap around his calf and the Velcro will wrap around the front of his leg. There is a special molding on the feet to help his feet distribute weight evenly on all his pads. This will help him with standing. He also had an eye Dr. appointment. It went very well. The Dr. said he is right on track for his actual age with eye development and vision. The only problem we discovered was on his right side Joe doesn't have peripheral vision. We need to enter his world from the left side Dr. Nixon told us. I wasn't surprised about it since that is his "weak" side and I was starting to notice with toys and feedings. It seemed like he could never see me from that side or he doesn't acknowledge toys or initiating interaction. He will adjust around it and I think he already has to some point.
Joe also got his first real haircut this month, not a surgery shave! He was such a good boy at the salon! He sat nice and still well Zach cut his hair. We decided to go with a mohawk......how cute is a mohawk on a little boy :) I call it his "Joehawk". It helped that someone was flashing pictures of him the entire time Zach was cutting his hair. Joe loves his picture taken. He poses and hams it up the whole time. It was the perfect distraction! The results were cuter than I anticipated.
Now we are all getting ready for our southern vacation! We are leaving June 17th and staying in Arkansas with Raymond's family for a week. I am so excited I can hardly stand it! I haven't been on vacation since May 2007. I am ready and deserve one! I am a little nervous about the 17 hour drive with a 4 yr old and a 19 month old, but we will survive. Raymond and the kids got to go last summer, but I stayed behind for training at my new job. The kids have been more places than I have.....haha!
Blake's Robot Cake
Birthday Boy :)
Finished Results!
Side View!
In April sickness overtook my household for some reason........Poor Raymond injured his lower back, ironically it was at the same time his Dad injured his back too! Fortunately, they both got it fixed and are feeling much much better now. After that little Joe got very very sick. He had an unexplained fever and was throwing up, so of course like the total nut that I am we rushed to the ER. After a lot of tests and a long night in the ER they ruled out his shunt being infected. What a relief! After that Raymond and I realized that we can't overact with him so much. Kids get sick.....that's just the way life goes. So from now on when he acts like he has the "flu" I'm going to wait a few days. If it gets better he is fine....if it stay the same or gets worse it may be his shunt. At that point I will take him in. It's so hard when you've had so many horrible things happen to you children. It's hard for us not to over react with baby Joe! He is so special and important! After Joe's sickness it was my turn I guess. I hurt my back too! It was near my right shoulder blade. It was one of the most painful things that I have ever experienced. I missed 2 days of work and it took 6 chiropractor appointments to get it fixed. I will never forget that in my life! I couldn't even care for Joe, he had to go stay the night with our friends and my Mom had to take him to and from daycare. Plus my poor Mom had to drive me all around because I couldn't even drive! Glad that month is behind us!
May was hectic too. Lots of birthdays, Mother's Day, and graduations. We celebrated a very special birthday party on May 21nd. Blake turned 4 yrs old!!! His real birthday is on May 24th, but we wanted to have a party during the weekend. It was so fun and robot themed! Blake loves robots! He loves vacuums and cleaning too...haha! Some friends and kids came over. He got spoiled with lots of presents and sweets. After Blake's party we got to go to another birthday party for little Jackson. At Jackson's party we got to go swimming and sit in the hot tub :) It was a busy but very fun day for everyone!
So far in June it's been Joe with the busy schedule. Joe was fitted for his leg braces and they should be done on June 10th. These braces will go just below the knee. The braces plastic will wrap around his calf and the Velcro will wrap around the front of his leg. There is a special molding on the feet to help his feet distribute weight evenly on all his pads. This will help him with standing. He also had an eye Dr. appointment. It went very well. The Dr. said he is right on track for his actual age with eye development and vision. The only problem we discovered was on his right side Joe doesn't have peripheral vision. We need to enter his world from the left side Dr. Nixon told us. I wasn't surprised about it since that is his "weak" side and I was starting to notice with toys and feedings. It seemed like he could never see me from that side or he doesn't acknowledge toys or initiating interaction. He will adjust around it and I think he already has to some point.
Joe also got his first real haircut this month, not a surgery shave! He was such a good boy at the salon! He sat nice and still well Zach cut his hair. We decided to go with a mohawk......how cute is a mohawk on a little boy :) I call it his "Joehawk". It helped that someone was flashing pictures of him the entire time Zach was cutting his hair. Joe loves his picture taken. He poses and hams it up the whole time. It was the perfect distraction! The results were cuter than I anticipated.
Now we are all getting ready for our southern vacation! We are leaving June 17th and staying in Arkansas with Raymond's family for a week. I am so excited I can hardly stand it! I haven't been on vacation since May 2007. I am ready and deserve one! I am a little nervous about the 17 hour drive with a 4 yr old and a 19 month old, but we will survive. Raymond and the kids got to go last summer, but I stayed behind for training at my new job. The kids have been more places than I have.....haha!
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