Life is fun!

And crazy too.

We've just been good and busy this week. My dad and brother Owen came by Friday to fix Dad's car, and stayed the night to finish it Saturday. We had fun with homemade pizza and a movie. I knew my pizza was good, but I caught Owen licking his plate! :-)

Then Saturday evening we met up with Mark's baby sister and her fiance at the Wingers that just opened in town and enjoyed a yummy dinner. Their original Amazing sauce really is amazing! They had come to Boise to check out a school he wants to attend next fall, and so they stayed Saturday night and went to church with us Sunday. I'm doing her wedding cake in April, so we hammered out the sketch for it and decided on the little details. We are both very excited, but it's going to take a lot of advanced prep to pull it off.

Oren had an appointment yesterday to check his weight since we adjusted his medication. He's gone from being in the 12% for height/weight, to the 4% range. Getting too low for my taste and the doctor's. So we are switching his meds to one that has been known to help with weight gain for kids like Oren. But to get on that one he has to fail 2 others. He's failed on the Concerta, so he's now on Adderol for 2 weeks. Since he won't gain a lot of weight in 2 weeks we can "fail" him on that and then the doctor can prescribe the Viavace he wants Oren on. Whew! Hope this works!

And it may have taken 3 months, but Daniel is finally on a sort of schedule! Nursing is a bit iffy right now, as my medication increases my milk supply has been doing odd things. So I'm taking fenugreek and have blessed thistle being shipped to be here tomorrow. I'm going to fight a bit more to breastfeed, but I will have no shame when I finally say - enough. It's been an uphill battle with this one, issue after issue. But it's so satisfying when we have a good day that it makes me want to do what I can to keep it going. At least in part. I don't mind supplementing if he needs it.

Feeling bad.

Mom, I feel so bad today. Somehow, in all the craziness that is my life and the busyness of my little family's schedule, your birthday snuck in.

And like the apperantly forgetful daughter that I seem to have become lately, I missed it. Meaning to call, and then, like often happens when one has small children, there were bumps and bruises and needing drinks, and soggy diapers, and dinner setting off the smoke alarms, and piano lessons, and stuffy nosed babies, and a night on the couch, and stepping on legos in the hallway.

None of which is an excuse, simply a fact of life. But it doesn't change that fact that I didn't call my Mom, the woman who gave birth to me, and put up with my non-stop chatter, and encouraged my creativity in cooking, paid for years of piano lessons (which I am putting to good use) , and sewed each of my children a beautiful blessing outfit.... on her birthday.

I do intend to call, hopefully before life can sneak back up on me. Until then, thank you for everything that you have done and still do for me. Thank you for being there if I need encouragement and support with my particular children and their challenges. Thank you for boosting my self esteem when I'm down. Thank you for all those lessons you taught me about life, I was paying attention, I promise. :-) Thank you for just being you, a wonderful mom.

Happy Birthday!

Daniel at 3 months

Has it really been 3 months already? Growing so fast, he loves sitting up and I need to find a used bumbo chair for him since he just doesn't really dig the swing.

My one and only child to ever really enjoy sucking on his fingers. He loves his pacifier, but fingers will entertain him right after he wakes up for a while.

I see a small resemblence to my brother Samuel. Kind of around the eyes. He's getting little thigh rolls, a rolly-polly rear, and creases in his wrists. William was so skinny that I love seeing a little chunk on my baby. Very reassuring.

He isn't feeling well today though. I called my mom last night frustrated that he was pretty much refusing to eat all day, and that before that he was wanting to eat every hour for 2 days straight. Very confusing! Turns out that he's a little sick, he woke up this morning coughing with a runny/stuffy nose, gassy tummy, and a low-grade fever. Poor thing. He's slept most of the day, and with him not feeling well, he wants to be held the whole time understandable. I'd want cuddled if I was little and sick too.

So not much has gotten done today, but he's been kept fairly comfy and has actually eaten decently today. Which means he's wetting diapers, luckily. Yesterday was a dry day and worrisome. Hope he feels better soon, this is his 3rd cold thing.

Too funny...

Ok, not funny at all. I crashed Mark's car this morning. What was funny was that I ended up eating Chinese food after all.

I had my appointment with my psychiatrist this morning. It went very well, and I got my prescription, I'll pick it up in the morning.

But then I wanted to get some Chinese and remembered that there was a Panda Express down the road a couple miles. So off I went. Daniel decided he was hungry and I was groping blindly for the pacifier. That didn't work, so I turned my head around for a second to see if I could spot it out of the corner of my eye. Just a second, that's all.

I turned my head back around to see that the car in front of me had stopped at the end of the line at the stoplight! He was moving the moment before! I slammed on my brakes and tried to get into the turning lane before smashing into the back of his car. I managed to turn enough that the right front of my car hit the left rear of his, but we still impacted good enough to completely smash my headlight out, bust out a couple of pieces of the grill, and buckle out the metal of his wheel well. He was driving an '84 BMW, so his was a solid enough car to not take too much damage, and it looks like he just has a sore neck. (he did go get it checked out though, hope he's okay.)

Daniel was crying before, but the impact made even madder! I sat for a second to make sure I was okay, and then got out to talk to the other guy. He was so nice about it, kind of stunned, but really nice. A police officer was driving by so we didn't have to call for one, and we got all the paperwork taken care of. They towed my car to the nearest collison center, and I remembered that I had denied rental reimbursment so Mark had to come get me. (What a fun phone call to get...) After an hour trying to sort out all the claim details and figure out where the car was going to be taken to, it was time to eat! The closest place happened to be a nice little Chinese restaurant on the corner, so the guys from that body shop gave me a ride since I had a big headache and wasn't feeling well from having not eaten in hours.

At least I got my Chinese! And everyone's okay, should have our car back in a week or so. At the bottom of the paper work there is a question. "What could you have done to prevent the accident?"

My answer.... "Let my son scream." Jeez-louiz. Mark's pretty impressed that I was able to prevent more damage by turning the wheel. So at least he's not mad.

Daniel at 2 months

I took this a couple weeks ago, so of course he already looks different. His face is a little more chunky now... They just grow so fast!

I did it.

When we knew we wanted another baby, I also knew that the best thing to do would be to go off my medications if possible. With full support of my doctor I stopped both my ADHD and Bipolar meds last December, and luckily got pregnant within a couple months. Thanks to a wonderfully supportive husband and understanding friends, I was able to stay relaxed and got through the pregnancy without the need for the meds, as well as the first 2 months postpartum.

But I've been having trouble. He's sleeping through the night, but daytimes have been overwhelming. Feeding schedule is erratic, situations with Oren at school have been stressful, and my house is ... well, not so good. And even though I really wanted to stay off for longer, I came to the realization while sitting on the couch staring at the mess in my living room: the toys and food crumbs, clothes, the view of the kitchen table we hadn't eaten at in a month because it was covered in junk, and the dishes that could take up a bathtub - and wanting to cry, that it was time to make the phone call.

I had done my research on the medication I was taking before, and only about 2% of the adult dose makes it into breastmilk. It's an anti-seizure drug, not an anti-psychotic, so it shouldn't cause any harm to Daniel. And I'm starting to think that the benefits to myself and my family definitely outweigh the risk. I'm going to keep nursing until my milk dries up (didn't take long with the others after they started sleeping through the night) because I already feel like such a failure in so many things thanks to the depressive episode I've been dealing with that I really need to keep doing the one thing I've been decent at. (I've gotten him, somehow, to eat sitting up about 75% of the time now. Not sure how!)

So I made the phone call this afternoon, and I go see my doctor on Thursday morning. I feel very relieved, that was a hard decision to make. Meds, plus an earlier bedtime, might just make all the difference.

Debating if it's really worth it?

So, I have an odd child. Daniel has been on this weird kick where he will only nurse if I'm laying down on my side. Except in the middle of the night when he is more than happy to nurse with me sitting up. ?????? It's been so frustrating! I feel like nothing get's done anyway because he still tends to cluster feed and only really sleeps well when being held. But now I spend most of my day laying down on the couch or the bed.

I am THIS close to saying I'll just pump bottles for him. Except I'm actually making enough milk so far and don't want to jepardize it. It hasn't been that big of an issue since we've been home the last 2 weeks on break and I don't really have to go anywhere. But what about when I start making the school runs again, and therapy in town, and piano lessons? It's not like I can lay down on the couch in the therapy waiting room, or my student's lessons, and just nurse away.

He does gulp less air when I'm lying down, so I know if feels better on his tummy to eat that way. It just makes me wonder if I should be happy I got this far and just give bottles so I can go back on my meds without worrying about what those are doing to him as well. How far do I want to go to get him eating in a normal fashion again? You'd think my 4th child would be my easiest to feed. Apperantly not. He's also my worst napper. (Sorry Rachel, hope yours turns out sunshiny happy. :-)) It's a good thing he's cute.