Torticollis

Why is it that my kids always get flat heads? Isaac had to wear a helmet for a few months and it killed me. I don't want to go down that road again, but here we are.

At Alex's two month doctor visit, I told his pediatrician that I noticed he always liked to turn his head to the right side. She checked him out and diagnosed him with Torticollis, which is Latin for "twisted neck". She said that the ligaments (or something) on one side of his neck are shorter than on the other side, causing him to favor one side, making that side flatter than the other and pushing that ear forward. I'm not sure if this is what caused Isaac's flat head. It's hard to tell because we didn't notice Isaac's until he was about 6 months old. The doctor said it's good we caught it early, and gave us some neck stretching exercises to do after every diaper change. She said if the stretches don't help, we'll need to bring him to physical therapy, and if that doesn't help, he'll need a helmet.

So is it working? I don't know. I want to think it is, and sometimes I feel like it is, but other times he goes right back to sleeping on his right side. I think I'm going to schedule a doctors appointment for the near future so she can look at it again, and if it's not satisfactory, go forward with the physical therapy.

I seriously loathe the thought of another one of my babies wearing a helmet. Please say a prayer for him.

This is Madness

WHAT were we thinking, trying to move with a little baby and a toddler?! I know it will be worth all of the work, but man is it difficult to get anything packed. First of all, when we actually have some spare time (ha!) to pack a few boxes, it's hard to figure out what to pack. We need most of the stuff in our house. I've been doing a lot of organizing/purging lately. It helps to know what I can pack, and what I can't. I've organized our kitchen, the boys' bedroom closet, and the upstairs. On my "to organize" list is our bedroom closet and the bookcase in the boys' room (which has become a bit of a catch-all). The week before our move is when we're really going to be hardcore packing and living bare bones from that time on. We're talking paper plates, plastic ware, only a few kids' toys, sleeping on the mattress on the floor type living. Should be a good time.

In other news, I went back to work today. I was slightly looking forward to it, but only slightly. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, except for one small thing. When I got to work this morning, the teacher (Mrs. Z) greeted me at the door and told me that she needed to go home because she had some sort of stomach bug. Grrreeeaaat. So it was me and a substitute teacher all day, and neither of us really had any idea what was going on. It was... interesting. Hopefully Mrs. Z is feeling better tomorrow.

It was hard for me to leave my sweet little Alex at daycare today. :( I don't remember it being this hard with Isaac, but that's probably because when Isaac went to daycare for the first time, I was in the hospital hoping that they didn't have to send me to Minneapolis for more procedures because of my gallblader surgery. I was a bit preoccupied. But Alex did fine, of course, and so did I.

So that's what's been going on in our household lately. It's been a crazy ride, but we're so excited to get settled into our new house! Only 2.5 more weeks! Woohoo!

Somebody Stop Me!

I absolutely can NOT stop shopping for house stuff online. It is way too easy having every store imaginable at my fingertips. Thankfully, I have enough self-control not to buy anything. I might buy more after we actually move, but I don't want to have to move it from one house to the other.

Ok, so I've bought a few things. I bought four outdoor folding chairs from JCPenney.com because they were on clearance, and since we're going to have this totally awesome backyard, we're going to need some comfy chairs to sit in. They are really nice chairs and I got them for a steal.

Also, I bought some cute little French coffee cups from Pier 1 to hang on the hooks by the sink (the current owners have some there, but mine are way cuter). I had to buy them now because they were on clearance and might not be there later. Right? Right!? Aren't they adorable?

I am especially obsessed with organization. I am bound and determined to keep my new house organized and relatively clutter free (or as clutter free as it can be with two small boys). Oh how I wish we had a Container Store closer than The Cities!

I'm organizing all my new-found obsessions on Pinterest. You can check it out, if you'd like. Here's my Pinterest page. I've got paint colors, organizing ideas, decorating ideas, etc.

Now if only I had a few extra thousand dollars to blow on all this neat stuff...

SOLD!

Ok, so this post is a bit overdue, but we've been crazy busy lately.

We sold our house!!

It officially went on the market last Tuesday (we had to wait because of Labor Day). We had two showings that night, and one of them made an offer! It was a very reasonable offer - full asking price minus some closing costs. We listed the house at a price higher than we actually expected to get, and the net offer was higher than I had hoped to get for the house, so we accepted! And not a moment too soon, and I'll tell you why...

When a sale is contingent on the buyer selling their house, as it is with the house we're buying, the seller can still accept another offer if they want to if that offer doesn't have that contingency. If that were to happen, the sellers would have to give us 48 hours to remove the contingency, or our contract would be void and they could sell the house to someone else.

Well, when our realtor came over to present the offer on our house on Tuesday night, he told us that the house we're buying got two more offers that day. So it was very good that we sold our house so that we could remove the contingency if we had to. About 20 minutes after the realtor left, he called and told me that they did, in fact, ask us to remove the contingency. So, if we hadn't have gotten an offer that day or the next day, we would have lost the house. Yikes! That was close!!

So last Thursday, we had both the inspection for the house we're buying, and for the house we're selling. Both houses passed, so now we only have to worry about the appraisal. Our realtor used to be an appraiser for a bank and said he doesn't think either house will have any issues with appraising for the selling price. So it looks like this whole thing is really going to happen! It's so crazy to think that in 6 short weeks, we'll own a different home!

I think this whole process is a bit more exciting for me than it is for James. Last week, he said, "It was more exciting the first time around," to which I replied, "This IS my first time around!" James owned this house before we were married, so I didn't get to pick it out, or get all excited and think about where I was going to put what, and how I was going to decorate, etc... It's stressful to buy a house, but so exciting!

And I'll leave you with this picture that I look at when I need to be reminded that this is really happening...

We're Buying a House!

Yep, we're buying a house!

It just went on the market on Friday evening. I called our realtor that night and told him we'd like to see it. We went to see it at 1pm on Saturday, and we were already the fourth viewing that day. Yikes! That's a lot of interest in one day. Long story short, we loved it. So I called my parents and they came to see it while we were there. They loved it too. We decided to put in an offer. Later that evening, our realtor called and said they countered (they only wanted to pay half our closing costs instead of all of them). We accepted. Woohoo!

Here's a picture:

Four bedrooms (three upstairs, one downstairs), two bathrooms (one upstairs, one downstairs), 2208 square feet, decent kitchen, huge dining area, lots of closet space, nice finished basement, double attached garage, and a decent back yard. We totally love it! There is nothing that we have to fix in this house. There are some things we'd like to do eventually, but nothing pressing. For example, some of the carpet/linoleum is not my style, so we'll replace that someday, but it is in good condition, so I can live with it. The kitchen will probably need updating in 5-10 years. The downstairs bedroom has paneling, and I'd like to tear that down and put up sheet rock. The family room in the basement has wallpaper, so we'll get rid of that. James would be able to do that and he could do it at his own pace because we don't have to live in the basement. The siding is in good shape and freshly painted, so we won't need to mess with that for a while, although eventually we will probably get steel or vinyl siding. And it will probably need new windows in about 5 years. The only thing we'll have to do sooner rather than later is put in a fence. No big deal, James could easily do that. Now that I think of it, we do have to repaint the master bedroom. It's bright pink right now. Yeah, no.

The best part it that both of my kids will have their own bedrooms!! I am so incredibly thrilled by this! And we'll have almost 1,000 more square feet than we have now. The neighborhood is really nice, I can totally see my kids growing up there. Although neither a double garage, nor an attached garage were requirements for us, we're so lucky that we're going to have both! And I can NOT wait to have an actual dining area rather than a tiny table crammed into the kitchen! I am so happy to say that this could very well be our forever house! We may never have to move again.

And oh, the move. I am not looking forward to packing up our entire lives and moving.

I should say that the sale is contingent on us selling our house. We have until October 7th to get an offer, or there will be no new house. Please cross your fingers for us!

Life Update

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. As you can imagine, we've had our hands full with a newborn and a two year old. Well, Alex isn't so much of a newborn anymore. He's already close to outgrowing his 3 month clothes and he's only 6 weeks old (almost 7)! He's eating 5 oz of formula at a sitting, and only recently stopped eating every three hours. Now he eats more like every 4 hours, give or take a half hour. Last night, he went 6 hours between feedings, which was nice for me. I actually got to sleep a little. And he's getting baptized on Sunday! He's getting so big so fast!

Actually, a lot has been going on in our household since Alex was born. A week after he was born, my blood pressure skyrocketed and I had to, once again, be admitted to labor and delivery. It takes some serious talent to get admitted to labor and delivery when you aren't even pregnant, but I did it. Lucky me. Anyway, I got to go home that same night, they just increased my dose of Labetalol. A few weeks after that, my blood pressure started to stabilize and my dose was cut a lot. Today, I was taken off of it completely. So far so good. That was a scary ride.

The last weekend in July, James' family rented a lodge at Mina Lake in Aberdeen, SD. We hadn't planned on going since we didn't think camping with a newborn would be particularly fun. But we ended up going, against our better judgement, and I'm glad we did. It was the first time a lot of his siblings had met Alex, and he was really good while we were there. Also, Isaac had a blast playing, fishing, and swimming with all his cousins! We spend one day at Storybook Land in Aberdeen. We had a blast, even though it was hot as begeezuz that day. It was a very fun trip.

Isaac fishing with Daddy at Mina Lake

Family picture at the Oz exhibit at Storybook Land in Aberdeen

James went back to work on August 8th. He works at 4am, so I'm on my own with Alex at night. It's been tough, but thankfully it's starting to get easier. I like having James home earlier in the day, and he lets me take a nap if I need it. Isaac will be starting daycare again tomorrow, so I'll have about 5 weeks to get used to getting two kids ready in the morning all by myself before I go back to work. I think it will be good for Isaac to go back. He misses his friends. And it will be easier on me just having Alex at home during the day. Maybe I'll actually be able to shower before James gets home! :)

I'll be going back to work on October 3rd. I'm not particularly looking forward to it, but it will be nice to be getting a paycheck again, albeit a pretty small one after you subtract out daycare expenses. Sigh.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that we almost bought a house! Four bedrooms, two bathrooms, finished basement, awesome deck and  fenced backyard, two-car detached garage. We put in a lowball offer (the house wasn't worth what they were asking) and after counter offers on both sides, didn't get it. You didn't know we were looking for a new house, you say? We weren't. I always like to keep an eye on houses in our price range, and I just happened to see one that looked perfect for us, so we decided to go look at it. We liked it. It needed a little work, like new shingles, lots of interior paint, and eventually new carpet, but that doesn't scare us. Before putting in an offer, we decided to look at other houses in our price range, just because I would feel weird if the house we bought was the only one we even looked at. I wanted to make sure there was nothing better out there. Nothing else really struck our fancy, so we went for it with the original house we viewed.

We're disappointed that we didn't get it, but we're not too upset about it. We don't need to move. We'd like to have a separate bedroom for Alex, and another one for a guest bedroom, and just some more room in general, but it's not necessary. So we'll keep an eye on the market, but we'll probably do some more serious house hunting starting this spring. There will be more on the market then, and the longer we wait, the better our financial position will be for house buying, so we're okay with waiting. Plus, we like our house. It's cute and cozy and I'll actually be a little sad to sell it.

So there is an update about what has been going on in our lives for the past six weeks. Hopefully I'll have a little more time to blog in the next six weeks.

Introducing Alexander John

Alexander John was born on Friday, July 8th, 2011 at 12:31 PM. He weighed in at a whopping 9lbs 15.4oz and was 21.5 inches long. And he has LOTS of hair. A lot. Dark hair, just like his dad. He's beautiful, and we're completely head over heals in love with him.

We went in at 10:00 AM for our 12:00 PM c-section. I was extremely emotional because a c-section is not what I wanted. I was torn between the joy of the impending birth of my son, and the feeling of loss for the birth I had hoped for. It didn't help that I started to have regular contractions while we were in the hospital room waiting. They were coming every 3-5 minutes. The nurse said they wouldn't even bother checking me for dilation since we were going to have baby soon anyway. I was thankful when the contractions stopped, simply because I didn't want to wonder if I would have soon gone into labor on my own. It would make the whole c-section thing even harder to take.

Shortly after we arrived, they put in an IV, which was problematic and painful since I apparently have small veins. My nurse wasn't able to do it, so she had to call the anesthesiologist to do it. Luckily, she got it in on the first try. It still hurt, though. :( Then my parents came to the room to help us pass the time until the surgery. My doctor came in and said everyone was ready to start a little early because they knew my dad had to work around 1:00 PM and I really wanted him to meet the baby before he had to go. I thought that was really nice that she remembered that and was trying to help make it happen. J changed into his scrubs, and soon I was being wheeled into the OR while J was ushered into the Daddy-to-be waiting area.

Once I was in the OR, they had me get into position for my spinal. A spinal is like an epidural, only it's put into a different part of the spinal column so it's a little more reliable than an epidural and it's a little stronger. They told me to let them know if I felt any pain in my legs and if so, to let them know which side. Almost immediately, I had to tell them that I had pain on the right side. They tried to readjust it for about 5 minutes, but I kept feeling pain on my right side, so they decided to start completely over. After they tried again, the same thing happened. Then I think they started to aim farther to the left, because I started to feel pain only on the left side. Eventually, they got it right. There must be something weird about my spine, because when I had my epidural with Isaac, it only worked on one side of my body. I feel like these two experiences must be related.

Anyway, after the spinal, they got me into position, and started to prep me for surgery. Then J came in, held my hand, and things got underway. It was SO much different from my last c-section. Last time, I couldn't feel anything. No tugging, no pressure, no nothing. This time, I felt pressure and tugging. It didn't hurt, I could just feel that something was being done to me. Also, this time I only felt slightly nauseous. After I told them that, they gave me Zofran and I felt better. Last time, I was dry heaving during the entire surgery. It was awful. I was thankful to avoid that this time.  The nurse who was standing by my head was super nice. I really liked him. He was very attentive, and made sure I let him know if I needed anything and was constantly checking to see if I was okay. He helped make this experience much better than I had hoped.

When it came time for baby to come out, I felt like someone was sitting on my chest, pushing baby out from the top. I honestly think that's what was going on. I don't remember any of that from last time. It was weird. Then the doctor said she could see him. She said he was huge! Here exact words were "Oh, look at that chubbers!" All of the sudden, there was my Alex, being held up over the curtain. He had so much hair! I couldn't believe it! They had James go cut the umbilical cord, which is largely ceremonial because the cord was already cut, he just cut it shorter. I remember laying there, watching them clean him off and thinking "He's not that big. What are they talking about?" Clearly, I am not versed in what a newborn should look like, because I was shocked when they announced his weight. 9lbs 15.4oz! Although, I still didn't think he looked that big. He carries his weight well. LOL.

Everyone was in good spirits. Jokes were being made about his chunkiness and his hair. My favorite nurse said when they announced his weight, "Probably about a pound less without all that hair!" Then they gave Alex to J for him to bring to me. My nurse took pictures of the three of us. Everything was wonderful. So much different than last time. This was not just a routine surgery, this was an experience. Soon it was time for J and Alex to head to the nursery, although I feel like they stayed with me much longer than last time. I was feeling very positive about the whole experience. Not at all what I had expected.

Not long after my boys took off for the nursery, I started to feel something on the right side of my abdomen where they were working at stitching me up. This was not just pressure and tugging. This was pain. I told my nurse that I could feel something. He asked what it felt like, and I told him a dull pain. It was hard to describe. He said to let him know right away if it got sharper or unbearable. After about 30 seconds, the pain got sharp. It hurt like someone was slicing me. I told him immediately. He was shocked, but it seemed that my spinal was wearing off. He ran off to get me some pain meds to put in my IV. I started to cry and breathe Lamaze style to deal with the pain. I heard the doctor say, "Can we get her something, please?" Then the pain started to ease up and I started to feel loopy. I can't remember what they gave me, but it was some sort of narcotic. Fine with me, I just wanted the pain to stop.

Then, my nurse chatted with me. I guess he has a son named Alex James. And the doctor chatted with me. My c-section was her last task before going on maternity leave (she ended up having her baby on Sunday, we were in the hospital at the same time). I didn't feel nearly as alone as during my last c-section. Last time I had excess bleeding, so there wasn't much chatting going on and the mood was not nearly as light. The doctor told me that it couldn't have gone better, although I disagree - I could have done without feeling them sewing me up. She also said she thinks I made the right decision about the c-section because he was so big. It made me feel better about it, too.

We spent the next three days gushing over our new addition. We had lots of visitors, and lots of help with Isaac. Both of which were much appreciated. I had a pump full of morphine where I could just push the button whenever I needed it. I felt amazing! I even was able to get out of bed and move to a chair ALL BY MYSELF the evening of my surgery. It wasn't even that painful. Last time, I remember crying when I stood up the next day because it hurt so bad. We got discharged on Monday morning.

So far, Alex is a little more high maintenance than Isaac was when he was a baby. He is awake a lot more, eats a lot more, and cries more than Isaac did. I had a hard time keeping up with his appetite, so breastfeeding didn't last long. He would latch on, and get frustrated because he couldn't get as much milk as he wanted, then unlatch and cry and cry and cry. Right now, I'm just pumping and giving him bottles of breast milk a few times a day. It makes me feel better to give him what I can. It's better than nothing. I had a low supply with Isaac, too, so I'm not surprised that it didn't work out. Thank goodness for my breast pump.

Anyway, things are going well and we're doing our best to adjust to being a family of four. Isaac seems to really like his baby brother, and likes to go over to him and talk. I'm not sure if he's talking to him or talking about him, but it's really cute. And he's obsessed with his toes. he always goes over to Alex and says, "Where toes go?" LOL. And Mommy gets a lot more snuggle time with Isaac because he is just a tad bit jealous.

Thanks to everyone for all the messages and texts. We appreciate all of your well wishes and congratulations. We're so very happy!