Birthday Spoils

This weekend was Aaron's birthday. Now he can't tease me about our age difference as much any more. I am officially 1 year and 2 months older than he is so for those two months between March and May I am two years older than he is. During those two months he does not let me forget I am two years older than he is--not very nice. Impressive enough Aaron braved church with all four kids alone on Sunday and stayed for all three meetings--what a guy!! That afternoon to celebrate Aaron's birthday G&G T came up and brought dinner for all of us. It was such a nice treat for Aaron to have a home cooked meal of roast and potatoes and an even nicer treat for me because I did not have to cook it or clean it up. Hooray for paper plates!! For dessert we had watermelon out on the back porch--nothing says Memorial Day like a ripe, juicy watermelon--yum!! I hadn't made Aaron's birthday cake yet so he had a watermelon "cake" complete with candles that the kids help him blow out.

With Noah on oxygen we did not want to take him out anywhere so we spent all weekend at home. However, Aaron's sister, Susan, came up to visit. So Aaron, our kids (minus Noah and me), Jill, and Susan with her three girls went out for a birthday lunch today. Thankfully, Jill helped him out with controlling the kids during lunch--not an easy task! For dinner we dusted off the grill and had hot dogs, chips, potato salad, cake and ice cream. I took the kids to the store earlier in the day to let them pick out something for Aaron's birthday. They picked out all kinds of junk food--we hardly ever have it around the house so they thought that would be the best present for him. Sarah got a hold of one of the candy bars, figured out how to open it and stuffed it in her mouth. She ended up sucking on it (not swallowing it) for the next hour with chocolate saliva and candy bar pieces dripping down her chin and all over her shirt--YUCK!! She ended up having a shower later on.

We usually go up to G&G T's cabin for Memorial Day weekend and we were sad we weren't able to this year. We still had a good weekend, though. The best thing is that now that Aaron and I are only 1 year apart in age. Aaron even got to hear Sarah, who doesn't talk very much, say Happy Birthday to him in her sweet little voice.

Desitin and a 20 Month Old

This is what happens when the Desitin cream doesn't get put away after use. And if you have a very curious 20 month old who is the ultimate opportunist that LOVES any type of lotion or cream. She put it in her hair, on her shirt, pants, all over her hands and face, and got it on the couch, too. The other night my sister and I went with Jill to cuddle with baby Sydney. She is doing really well. She is just on oxygen through a nasal cannula (just like Noah) and they are working with her feedings. She is growing and up to a whopping 2 pounds 10 ounces. The nurse introduced a teeny tiny preemie pacifier that day and Sydney loves it!!

Momma Said There'd Be Days Like This...

Whoa what a morning!! It started out about 3 am when I got up to feed Noah. After burping him, cleaning up the massive spit up I was covered in, wrapping him up and laying him down to go back to sleep, he decided breathing was the uncool thing to do. From 3 am to about 6am he kept setting off the apnea alarm requiring me to stimulate him at least once to remember to breath. I lost track of how many times it went off after the first five alarms. However, from 6am on he's been doing great and catching up on his beauty rest while he left me to man the other kids which were all awake by 6am. I decided there wasn't much use trying to get any more sleep while all the kids were now awake so I got up. When I went in to get Sarah out of her crib I found the boys had given her a sippy of milk they had found somewhere and I don't know where it even came from or how old it was (it was room temperature--YUCK!). She had drank about half of it when I took it away sending her directly into tantrum mode. I just can't wait to see if she will get sick later on from drinking old milk--lucky me. Next I went downstairs and got breakfast going. While the kids were eating I decided to pay our bills online. I was trying to concentrate, but vaguely remember Matthew screaming that there was something wrong with the toilet. I just assumed he was out of toilet paper, but then I heard the shower turn on so I didn't give it another thought. I then told the boys to pick up their pajamas and throw them in the dirty clothes hamper which happens to be in the bathroom. Daniel tried to open the door only to find Matthew had locked it while he was showering. I then told Matthew to unlock it while I was still trying to pay my bills. Matthew jumped out of the shower and unlocked it. That is when I heard Daniel scream there was toilet water all over the floor. I quickly turned my attention from paying my bills to seeing how big of a mess it was upstairs. Yes, it was disgusting! Matthew had clogged the toilet (probably from toilet paper since he uses about half a roll). I fixed the toilet and cleaned up the big wet mess. While I was cleaning up that mess Sarah went into my bathroom, pulled out all the cleaning supplies and was playing with them while her brothers sat idly by laughing at her. I somehow didn't find that as funny as they did. It's a good thing Matthew and Josh have school today!! I think Sarah, Daniel, and Noah will be having some quiet time later on while I get a chance to catch up on my beauty rest after I finish cleaning up Noah's massive spit up I am now covered in again. What a morning!!! Things are truly almost back to normal...I guess that's a good thing...I am still trying to decide ;).

Noah

Since Noah is on oxygen and has the apnea monitor, I don't feel very good about taking him out to get his pictures done. Susan, Aaron's sister, came up the other weekend and took some pictures of him instead. I took him off the oxygen and apnea monitor long enough to get these. I think they turned out great:Aaron also got the opportunity last night to hold Sydney at the hospital last night. You can see how little she is in Aaron's hands. We are waiting for her to get big enough to get out of the hospital so we can get the two trouble makers, Sydney and Noah's, pictures together:

Shoes Can Change a Girl's Life

"Cinderella is living proof that a pair of shoes can change a girl's life." That is Sarah's new motto. She has developed a LOVE for shoes. Yesterday I was at the store and happened across the little girl shoe section. I picked up a pair of shoes and tried them on Sarah, but I put them back because I didn't want to buy them right then. Sarah had different plans and started screaming. She pulled off her regular shoes and refused to let me put them back on her. She tried to crawl out of the cart to grab the shoes I had just put back or any other shoe she could get her little hands on. We ended up getting those shoes just to appease her. She insisted on wearing them throughout the store even though they were still tied together with the elastic band new shoes come with to keep both mates together. She loves having her shoes on so much that in the morning the first thing she does is get her shoes on mismatched or not--even before breakfast. This morning she even screamed for over an hour straight because I made her wear a pair of church shoes she didn't want to. When I wouldn't take them off her feet she threw a very LONG tantrum. I guess she got over it, but Aaron had to load her into the car to go to church still screaming this morning because she did not want to wear those shoes. I also must add she gets them on the wrong feet almost every time. She is a funny girl.

Sarah, even though not talking, is very socially appropriate which is a big relief. Yesterday she got some girly sunglasses, but did want to wear them right away. She only put them on and left them on when she saw Jill and me put ours on. The other day all the cousins got together to celebrate their uncle Jeff's birthday at the park. There is a big hill the cousins started rolling down. Sarah couldn't quite figure out how to roll down so she got on her bum and pushed herself all the way down the hill. She thought she was doing it just like everyone else. Yesterday her and her idol, Daniel, came up missing. She just loves Daniel--anyway, we found them a few minutes later. She had followed Daniel upstairs and crawled into our bed with him. They were just "talking"--more like she was listening to Daniel's chatter since she doesn't say too much right now.

Lately she has been awakened pretty early in the morning by her brothers to play. Since she is getting up really early she has been falling asleep at the counter during lunch. She has done this three times this week. One time she even fell asleep during mid bite of her chicken nugget. Here she is after church just today:Here she is mid bite of her chicken nugget that is still on her fork:Here she had finished her lunch and decided to take a snooze: I am happy to say that our truck is working for now. Aaron with some help from Uncle Bryan and some more "help" from Josh and Daniel changed out the fuel filter and fuel pump. Hopefully, we can keep it working this time. Aaron appreciated the help from everyone. Since Noah is connected to oxygen and the apnea monitor bathing isn't too easy. I get the little pink basin from the hospital and carry it downstairs and bath him right next to his equipment. That way I can slip him off the oxygen and apnea monitor for as little time as possible while I wash his face, hair, and chest. I love it when they are little enough to fit inside the pink tub. I have a picture of all my kids taking a bath in it when they are newborns. I tried to censor the picture--just trust me he's a boy.

In other happenings just to keep things exciting and our savings account low--our garage door spring sprung (aka broke) Thursday night. Luckily it was Aaron's Friday off (he gets every other Friday off) because both cars were stuck inside the garage with the garage door wedged into place. The truck wouldn't start either. I am happy to say it is now fixed with a LIFETIME warranty--lately I am becoming more and more of a fan of warranties with our luck....we even got all the rollers and door lubricated so it is even quiet to boot. Aaron didn't know how boring and rich he was until he got married with children and everything changed...

I Got to Hold Sydney

My preemie niece, Sydney, who was born a week and a half ago finally got weaned off the ventilator yesterday which means she can be held occasionally now. I went with Jill to the hospital last night and Jill let me hold her for a little bit. She is so sweet. She still makes all the sweet little baby noises and cries--albeit it is very soft, but you can still hear her cry. Since Sydney is so little she has problems keeping her body temperature up so to be able to hold her she has to be wrapped up in a bunch of warm blankets. In the pictures she is a bunch of blankets with a head peeking out. While we were there I tried to get some pictures to show how small she really is. She was born weighing 2 pounds 13 ounces, but they soon found out she had a pretty bad infection which added quite of bit to her weight due to the swelling from the infection. Now she is over the infection she has lost 8 ounces so now she only weighs 2 pounds 5 ounces. It is crazy to think she is half the size of Noah when he was born and I thought he was little.

Here's her tiny fingernail compared to Jill's:Jill got to give her a sponge bath yesterday. Afterward she combed her hair with a little toothbrush:Here she is compared to Jill's sunglasses. One of her lenses is almost as big as her head!Jill was so excited to finally hold her baby for the very first time yesterday morning. Here's the very proud Momma (for some reason I could not get this picture to turn the right way so just tilt your head):She is a sweet little girl!! She is doing really well for as early as she was. Right now we are just waiting for her to grow, learn how to eat and get a little more mature--things that will take a few months.

Whoa, That's a Lot of Money!!

Well, now that things have somewhat calmed down at our house (keeping my fingers crossed it stays that way) the bills have started coming in. Josh's hospital stay complete with ambulance ride and ER visit came to a grand total of almost $10,000. My 9 day hospital stay (not including the doctor's fees which are separate) came to a grand total of almost $19,000. The real kicker came yesterday in Noah's NICU bill. His 4 week and 1 day stay came to a whopping $104,217.90. It was a good thing I was sitting down when I saw that bill. Now that bill does not include the breast pump, his apnea monitor and oxygen rental either. It is a good thing we have health insurance is all I can say. I can say he is worth it, though.In other happenings Noah had an appointment yesterday with the pediatrician. His weight is up to 7 pounds 7 ounces from last weight of 6 pounds 9 ounces which was 12 days ago. Since he is gaining weight I can now nurse him exclusively all feedings except for two bottles fortified with extra formula a day. Our next visit is in two weeks and that visit we will start to talk about getting him off the oxygen and apnea monitor. The doctor didn't even want to broach that subject until he was 40 weeks gestational age wise which won't be until this Friday. It is crazy to think I should have still been pregnant with him until Friday. Anyway he is doing well and loves to be held. Since he will definitely be my last baby (I don't think we and everyone else could handle it if we had another one) so I am going to spoil him rotten and hold him a lot ;).

Saturday Josh kept complaining of having a headache. I kept telling him he was fine and to stop complaining. Well I ended up eating my words when I felt his forehead and he was burning up. Since any fever can lower his seizure threshold and I definitely don't want that to happen since it was so hard to get him under control before--I took him into the doctor. Why do kids always get sick on the weekend or at night or both? Luckily he just had Strep Throat which is easy to treat. I didn't want to mess with going to the pharmacy so I asked if Josh could get an antibiotic shot instead. Josh was not happy with me, but he is feeling a lot better and I don't have to mess with giving him his antibiotic twice a day or forgetting it twice a day which happens more often than not.

As for me I had the fun experience of getting the stomach flu yesterday complete with a fever. I couldn't keep anything down, but I am feeling better today. I am still not back to myself, but definitely feeling better today than yesterday. Since I couldn't be too far away from a bathroom, Aaron ended up taking Noah in for his appointment with the pediatrician yesterday. Aaron mentioned I had the stomach flu and the pediatrician said it was going around, but should be better in 12-24 hours. It has been 24+ hours and I am still having symptoms, but it is getting better. I guess we got to keep things exciting. I am ok with that as long as it doesn't include a hospital stay for anyone...THANK GOODNESS FOR HEALTH INSURANCE!!

The Price of Beauty

The other morning things got a little too quiet and that usually isn't a very good sign. The silence was then broken by screaming from Sarah. I waited a little bit to see if the screams would die down, but she continued to scream so I went to see what the problem was. I found her perched on my sink with my noxema bottle opened and it smeared all over her clothes, neck, hands, hair, mouth, nose and eyes. I then looked around some more and saw where she had smeared it all over my mirror, bathroom counter and sink. AWESOME!! She was screaming because she had gotten it in her eyes and I am sure it must have burned. I undressed her and threw her in the shower (her second one for the day). She has seen me wash my face with it so I guess she wanted to try it out for herself, too. It must have really hurt because her eyes stayed red for a few days afterward.Lately Sarah has been really into shoes. She has had some interesting combinations on such as a snow boot on one foot with a church shoe on the other. She loves to try on everyone's shoes. G&G M went to the store and found her some princess shoes. She tried them on and LOVES them. She loves to wear them on the hard floor in the kitchen and living room because she likes to hear them click as she walks. I love having a girly girl!

Preemie Sydney, the Newest Member of the Family

Jill's baby, named Sydney Taylor Nelson, was born Tuesday around 5 pm. Jill's water had broken that morning and her labor progressed to the point they couldn't stop it. Luckily, Jeff, her husband, was able to make it in time for the delivery. Jill was 27 weeks and 6 days pregnant so her little girl was pretty early. She weighed in at 2 pounds 13 ounces and was 15 inches long. She is currently in the NICU, but doing pretty well considering how early she was. I got to meet her for the first time last night and she is very little, but very cute. Jill is doing fabulous and is excited to finally be able to get out of bed and walk around after two weeks of complete bed rest. They guesstimate Sydney's discharge date around Jill's due date which was August 4th so Jill will be staying with us for a while until she can go back home to Texas. Here's some pictures of Sydney:
This picture shows her with her biliruben mask on. She is under the biliruben lights since she was jaundiced and the mask helps protect her eyes.
All the nurses know me and Jill since we have been going almost every day to the NICU since Noah was born. Sydney's nurse, standing next to me in the picture, took care of Noah too while he was in the NICU.

Mother's Day with Boys

You know you are a mother of boys when your home made Mother's Day card is filled with the words "poop" and "butt". Here's what Josh's home made bookmark said, "Dear Mom, I love love you and baby noah who sleeps a lot hiccups a lot who poops a lot." His card said, "Mom, your the best mom in the whole white (wide) world. I love you more than my tummy and my butt. I love your coking (cooking) I even love baby Noah, by Josh". On the other side of the card he drew a picture of him giving me the card and saying happy mother's day and me receiving the card saying I love it!!! Where these kids come up with these things I don't know.

For Mother's Day I ended up taking four kids to church with me alone (Matthew, Josh, Daniel, and Sarah). Boy, the people behind me in the chapel sure got a comedy show while watching me trying to keep them all quiet. I stayed because I wanted to see the boys sing their Mother's Day songs in sacrament meeting. I love watching them up and stage waving and excited to be up there. However, I was exhausted by the end of sacrament meeting, though. Wrestling with all four kids is not too easy--I can't wait until Noah will be thrown into the mix...Anyway, when we got home we all had some quiet time and then Aaron fixed me dinner which was a nice treat. He also had thought ahead and with the kids help picked out and ordered me a special Mother's Day cake which was sweet. He also let the boys pick out a small present for me from down the candy aisle--and no I didn't share :). It was a good Mother's Day.

However, later on it got a little bit scary after I got a call from my sister-in-law Jill who was having quite a few contractions that they couldn't stop. They ended up transferring her from antepartum over to labor and delivery to watch her very closely. They threw everything at her they could to try and stop the contractions coming about every 3-5 minutes apart throughout the night. After a long and exhausting night they finally stopped/slowed this morning. Unfortunately, she will be spending the next 48 hours over in labor and delivery for close observation because she has progressed a little more than where she was at two weeks ago. She is only 27 weeks and 5 days pregnant which is pretty early for her baby to come. We are hoping and praying things will settle down and she will go back to having a long BORING hospital stay instead of this preterm labor thing. I guess her little girl wanted to meet her Mom for Mother's day, but we are hoping she waits for a lot longer.

I'm a Mad Chemist and Some Preemie Issues

Or it seems that way when I am mixing up Noah's food. While in the NICU he didn't gain as much weight as he should have so they started supplementing his food with extra calories. To keep him gaining weight they sent us home on the same schedule and it is crazy. They say I can nurse him every other feeding, but for the in between feedings he needs to get some different concoctions. He needs to get two formula bottles a day with the special high calorie formula for preemies with a special thickener mixed in. The other bottles he gets needs to be breast milk with a half a scoopful of the high calorie formula per 3 ounces of fluid. However, since he has reflux issues we have to add a thickener to it to help him keep his feedings down. To mix the thickener up we have to add one package of thickener per 8 ounces of fluid. So between adding the half scoopful of formula with the thickener it can get a little confusing. I even had to explain it to the pediatrician because he didn't quite understand it either. So to start out the day I have to defrost some breast milk, mix in the formula and then mix it with the thickener. Then I have to mix up the formula bottles with the thickener so our fridge is full of bottles for Noah's feedings. It is crazy!! It makes me feel like a mad chemist with all the mixing ;). He still is not waking up so we also have to wake him up every 4 hours and make sure he eats the whole bottle. Since he doesn't get the thinkener when he nurses I am supposed to hold him upright for about an hour afterward. I guess that's when Noah and I get our bonding time in as I try to ignore all the chaos around me.

As for our first night last night...it wasn't very restful as you can see from my face in the picture:His apnea alarm went off a ton of times--I lost track after about 7. When that alarm goes off, let me tell you, it is loud and shrill enough to wake the dead or give you a good scare. A few of the episodes were because his heart rate dropped too low and the other times it was because he stopped breathing. He mostly recovered on his own, but a few of them required me stimulating him in some way--either rubbing his cheek or flipping his feet. Then early this morning the apnea monitor started going off because the lead had came off his chest and stuck on to his arm. It was alarming because it couldn't pick up his heart beat--ya, that was fun. I did take him into the pediatrician's office today because they like to see him as soon as he gets home. It was crazy trying to balance the oxygen tank, apnea monitor, diaper bag, purse and car seat. By the time I got into the pediatrician's office all the wires and tubing was hopelessly tangled up in knots. Oh well what can you do? One nice thing about him being a preemie is we don't have to wait at all in the waiting room, they get us right back to a room ASAP. I don't even have to sign in before we are whisked back to a room. AWESOME!! They certainly know my family at that office. As soon as they saw Noah they then asked if he was an accidental home birth, too, but I can thankfully say NO!!! The pediatrician looked him over and he looked great. We get to go back a week or two for a weight check to make sure he is gaining. If he is gaining then we can talk about changing up his mad chemist diet (see above paragraph). Unfortunately, he will continue to be on oxygen and the apnea monitor for a while. For tonight, we are keeping our fingers crossed for a quiet, peaceful night without any scares and alarms...How's that for wishful thinking?

Since Noah was a preemie there are a few extra concerns for him. Preemies can have issues with eye muscle development so they have an increased chance of having cross-eyedness and lazy eye. We have an appointment set up for the opthamologist for November to get him checked out. We also have an appointment with the developmentalist for November to make sure he is on track for his adjusted age in his development. Since he was 7 weeks early we can count on him being about 7 weeks delayed in hitting his milestones. Hopefully he won't be any more delayed than that.

Anyway Matthew and Josh were excited to meet Noah for the first time yesterday. As for the rest of us we are just in "survival mode". I didn't even get Sarah dressed today or do her hair. Because she didn't get dressed she went and found her own accessories to go with her nightgown. I took a picture because I thought she looked so funny with her mismatched shoes (on the wrong feet) and the cowboy hat.

As for me if I turn up missing just look for me in my laboratory (kitchen) mixing up some crazy high calorie concoctions in a delrious, half awake state while trying to silence the alarms :).