Saturday, June 28, 2008

Sickness

I am so sleepy today. The babe has some sort of cold or allergy thing going on and it is making all of us just miserable. Anytime has has nasal drainage it gags him and makes him throw up. Then he starts crying, which only worsens the situation. I think I slept for maybe 3 hours last night, in 1 hour increments of course. I got the most sleep sitting on the living room floor holding the babe in my lap propped up on tons of pillows. It was not comfy at all, but at least I was able to close my eyes. He has started sneezing this morning which is good because it is getting the gunk out of his head. Everytime he sneezes he yells, "YUCK, NASTY!" Unfortunately for everyone else in our house when the sun came up this morning my sweet little sick boy felt it was the perfect time to start his day, since he hasn't been able to sleep anyway. I think I will wait until Hubby gets up and quietly sneak off to the bedroom for a nice long nap. We had planned to take the babe to see Wall-e today, but we will just have to wait and see how he is feeling later. I know right now he seems okay, but who knows in a few hours how he will be feeling. I am sure just like everything else, this too shall pass.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

My little boy

I am sorry that I am such a bad blogger. My life is just so busy that most of the time I have a hard time making time for the things that I enjoy, such as blogging. Anyway, I have not written about the babe in a while so I thought I would update you on his growth and the many milestones that he has passed. He is such a big boy, bot fat, just tall. Actually we have a hard time finding clothes that fit him in the waist and the length. He is slim and tall. He was tall enough (over 3') on vacation to ride in the go cart with me on the wooden track. He had this look on his face but never said that he wanted to get off and he did not cry. I kept my hand on his leg the whole ride and kept asking if he was okay and he was, at least he said he was!

He is so very smart too. He outsmarts us sometimes. He requires an answer to all of his questions, and if you don't give him an acceptable one, he just keeps asking. He knows all of his ABCs by sight and the song. He can also tell you what letter certain words start with. He can read letters off of signs or in books. We are constantly amazed by him. He can carry on a conversation with people. He loves to tell everyone that will listen about his latest toy, whether it be a monster truck or his new best friends from Kung-Fu Panda. Sometimes I wonder where he comes up with this stuff, but I am sure that he has heard it somewhere and just stored it in that huge brain of his. He can "read" books that we have read to him. He can tell you things that happen in movies and on TV shows. We try not to watch too much TV, but it is usually on in the background of our life anyway. At least he is picking up good things from it! He can also count to 20 and beyond. For some reason he has some aversion to the number 6. He usually skips it, but if you show him the number 6 written he knows what it is and where it goes in a sequence. He loves to talk on the phone and he can usually tell who we are talking too, don't ask me how because I have yet to figure that one out.

He orders his own food in restaurants, complete with Sprite and water. That just cracks most of the waitstaff up that he orders for himself. It cracks me up too. He always asks everyone else eating what they are having. His favorite foods are chicken and french fries. He also likes steaks, hot dogs, sauteed mushrooms, rice, mashed potatoes, and almost any kind of peas. He likes most breakfast foods too. I have to keep cherry Pop Tarts in the car because that is what we eat on our commute in the mornings. He will usually eat a half one in the afternoons too.

He can play for hours with his toys. He loves his trains and cars. Just this past week he learned how to take apart his train tracks and put them back together, sometimes in a different pattern. He also loves our dog. He does aggravate her by chasing her with his wheelbarrel or throwing his balls at her or crawling around on the floor with her and disturbing her many naps. He was trying to hug her and love on her this morning and she kept getting away and I could hear him begging her to just please be still so I can love on you. It just makes me smile to hear him be sweet like that. He is sweet for the most part. Unless he is tired, then he can turn in to a little monster, but I will not go into that today. I just want to focus on the good.

He still will not give up his paci, but the time is drawing near that it is just going to disappear or suddenly get a hole in it or something. He amazes most people because even with his paci he talks better that some kids older than him. He still sleeps with us. Sometimes I really miss the days of just putting him in the bed and still having a little time for me, but I so enjoy snuggling with him and being able to watch him sleep. I love that I am the first face that he sees in the morning and he is the first face that I see. It just makes my day so wonderful when he rolls over and snuggles with me and says, "I love you Mommy". It also just melts all my cares away when we are lying in bed at night watching some movie trying to fall asleep and he wants me to hold him and snuggle him to me. It just makes everything in the world seem alright. He still gets excited everyday when I pick him up after work. I ring the doorbell and wait to hear him screaming Mommy, Mommy and hear his little feet running to the door.

Although he is growing and maturing fast, he will always be my little boy!

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Death really does come in threes

In the past 3 weeks I have lost 3 people in my life. I always thought that it was crazy when people said that death comes in threes, but in this case it was right on. On May 10th a former co-worker that I still kep in touch with had an aneurysm and she was alive, but we really were not sure how much alive she was. Her family really would not say for sure. I went to see her in the hospital, she was just sleeping, or in a coma really. She was always one of those women who were dressed to the nines with a matching purse and shoes for every outfit she had. She loved to shop! When I got married my thing that was borrowed were her shoes and they were a perfect match for my dress. She looked bad in the hospital, hooked up to all those tubes and she was on the ventilator. I don't usually go see people in the hospital when they are hooked up to all that stuff, it just freaks me out, but I just had to go see her. I went to see her a few times and I kept up with her prognosis from a few of our mutual friends. I went to see her on Thursday, May 15 and on the way there my cousin had texted me and told me that they had to move my Bigmama to hospice.

My Bigmama was my dad's mom. I spent a lot of time at her house growing up. My grandparents owned a farm and my cousin and I would help my Bigmama gather eggs in the afternoons. She kept everything going on that farm, she cooked 3 meals a day and made sure her family was taken care of. After my Grandaddy died 20 years ago, my youngest aunt took over the duty of caring for her and making sure that she had what she needed. Bigmama had a stroke about 8 years ago and lost the use of her right hand, but she learned to walk again and when she got out of the hospital she went to live with my aunt. She lived with my aunt for a year or so, but it just got to be too much, she needed more medical care than my aunt could give so she moved into an assisted living place. She loved it there. They had activities and played bingo. They had church on Sundays and special outings for the residents. Bigmama eventually got to the point that she needed a wheelchair all of the time, so my aunt got her one of those pwer chairs. That was always funny to everyone in the family because Bigmama never learned to drive, she never had a drivers license. She did run over a few of the other residents, but they always forgave her. She was such a sweet woman, she never complained and she loved having company. Before I had the babe, I would go and eat lunch with her at least once a week. Her health had been gradually declining over the past few months and she had to be moved from the assisted living home to a nursing home. She only stayed in the nursing home for a month. Her eyes had gotten so bad that my aunt had to take her wheelchair away because she could no longer see to drive it. She was moved to the hospice on early Thursday morning. I went to see her on Thursday night, but I never actually saw her, everyone kept saying how bad she looked and I just did not want to see her like that. She was on morphine and was in no pain. She never woke up once she got to the hospice. I sat on the porch for hours with my aunt and my family and just reminisced about the past. I got the call that Friday morning that she had died.

The next Wednesday my co-workers husband had a meeting with the doctors about his wife. The doctors recommended unplugging the ventilator, she had no brain activity and had made no improvements in the time that she was there. They unplugged her about 12:30 and she died at 12:50. I just still can't come to terms with this death. It is just so unreal. She was only 55. She was so filled with life, it is just so hard for me to believe that I will never talk to or see her again on this earth.

Last Wednesday morning my phone rang and it was my second cousin telling me that his mom had died on Tuesday. This is my great aunt that had alzheimers and had both of her feet amputated in the past year and my Granny had gone down to live with her. She lives an hour away from us. She had a urinary tract infection that turned septic and she died. This aunt was my favorite of my Granny's sisters. She was so funny. I went to visit her at least once a month when I was growing up. She had like 13 children and a ton of grandchildren. In the last few years her alzheimers had gotten so bad that she did not know anyone, even her own children. It just got so sad for me to go see her. She had gotten to the point that she could not eat, she was being fed through a syringe and she could not get out of bed. To me she had been gone a while, especially since she did not know anyone. She did not even know who she was. It was really sad, so I feel that she is truly in a better place. I guess all three of them are really.