Rough Week Continues...

Rough week continues. I felt run-down through the rest of the week and most of the weekend. Unfortunately, I am not sure if I feel so run down because I am so pregnant or because of the sinus/ear infection. I went to work all day on Thursday and that was probably pushing it, but I just took all the medicine I could and made it through the day. On Friday I had already scheduled to take the afternoon off from work to go to the rodeo with Chad’s family. I still felt run down, but there was no way I was going to miss the rodeo! Chad drove me to work on Friday and then picked me up at lunch time and we met up with his family for lunch at La Familia. It was his brother Blake’s 24th birthday so we were celebrating that as well. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLAKE! After lunch Chad, his mom & I ran home to let our dogs out. I had insisted on keeping them inside that morning because it had been cold & raining. I guess I’ve got some intense mothering feelings going on… Then we went and picked Riley up from daycare and headed straight to the rodeo. Riley did great through about the first 30-45 minutes, but then Grandmommy must have sensed his antsy-ness and she took him to walk the concourse. They came back shortly thereafter with a small blue guitar and some cotton candy, which they dropped off and then Riley insisted they leave again. When they returned again they had a blue parasol, which Riley broke upon getting to our seats. He didn’t seem to care too much when we told him we would try and fix it later and he just sat happily under the umbrella part. He then wanted to go walking again so Grandmommy took him and realized that he thought that every time they walked the concourse she would buy him something! She didn’t this time and they came back to our seats. After the rodeo we went to see if the pony rides, petting zoo and midway were open. Only the petting zoo was open and the others were closed because it was so cold. We went in the petting zoo and laughed at some of the silly looking ducks and then we went to walk around to the cattle barns. Riley could not understand why all the fun rides he rode the last time were closed, but he eventually forgot once we got to the cattle barns. A big thank you goes out to Chad’s family for dealing with my extra slow walking! We walked for what felt like forever and my foot started to hurt so I was going pretty slow. I was never so happy when we left and got into the car.

(Riley looks so sleepy because we woke him up a bit early from his nap to go to the rodeo!)

(The infamous broken blue parasol)

(In the petting zoo!)

We went to Grandmommy’s house where I tried not to fall asleep before church. Riley watched The Wizard of Oz and we all had some milk as a snack before we headed up to church for the Come As You Are service. It was Raul’s last Friday night service and we were there to support him. I never expected to get so emotional, but I ended up crying through about half of the service. Raul has been so kind to Chad’s family and my family, especially in helping with the memorial arrangements for Jake in 2008. He also baptized Riley in 2007. I didn’t realize quite how much he had meant to me until he was standing up in front of us talking about change in his sermon and how we will all be okay in his absence. The church he is going to lead is so lucky to be getting him! Afterwards there was a meal served for everyone in the Fellowship Hall and we had a great time visiting with everyone and watching Riley run around with these two little girls who are about 4 months older than him. They liked his guitar!

On Saturday we had a birthday party to go to. My parent’s next door neighbor’s daughter, Maddie, was turning 3 and they invited Riley to her party. It was at their house so it was pretty convenient! Riley had lots of fun playing, especially on Maddie’s toy horse! He didn’t want to share it with the other kids, but eventually he did. We had fun watching Maddie open her presents and Riley gave her a sweet hug when we left.

(Riley on Maddie's horse. Nana is trying to figure out where in my house I can fit one of these!)

(Tami made Maddie's cake! YUM!)

After the party we headed home to put Riley down for a nap. While he slept, Chad & I both also napped. I think I may have reached the point where napping is a necessity whenever I can fit it in. My body really only lets me sleep comfortably for about an hour to two hours at a time, so a nap is perfect! After we woke up we called my parents and they invited us to dinner with them and my Aunt Renee & Uncle Scott at La Familia (yes, La Familia again!). I was really not feeling well when we arrived, but I went for some bland bean & cheese nachos on the menu and felt much better after eating. Riley was pretty well-behaved at dinner also. He did at one point try to fit his head and Chad’s head both into Chad’s hoodie, which was pretty funny!

(Two heads in one hoodie!)

Yesterday, we ended up with the whole day to ourselves. Grammy had not been feeling well so we cancelled lunch. I was feeling pretty run down all day, so Chad thankfully took the reins on the day’s plans. We went to Pappas Burger for lunch and Riley enjoyed a kid’s milkshake:

After lunch we went grocery shopping and Riley was a little temperamental, but only because he was tired. He fell asleep on the way home. When we got home, Kate arrived with Elizabeth. We watched her for a couple of hours while Kate worked. She was a hoot, very mischievous, but with a silly grin attached! Riley didn’t nap for very long and soon he was up playing with “Riley’s Elizabeth” as he called her upon realizing she was there!

Yesterday afternoon my parents called and let me know that they were taking Grammy to the emergency room. She had not been felling well and had fallen a couple of times and when they went to check on her, her breathing was labored. Thankfully, they took her in as when they arrived at the ER, her pulse/ox was really low and they hooked her up to some oxygen right away! Her levels are up better and after scans & x-rays, it seems that she may have pneumonia in one of her lungs. They moved her to Pulmonary ICU last night so she could be constantly monitored and she will probably stay there today. It also seems that she broke her left foot during one of her falls, but I don’t know what their long-term plan is for that yet. My mom is keeping me posted as I am trying to stay away until I start feeling better. Please keep my Grammy in your prayers!

To top off my sickness, over the weekend I had a reaction to my antibiotics. My tongue started swelling and got white spots all over it! I called the on-call nurse on Saturday and they just told me to stop taking the meds and call my doctor back on Monday. I called them this morning and they decided to stop antibiotics for now and see if maybe I get better on my own. They think maybe because I am pregnant, I am having strange reactions to the medicine. I am feeling 75% better than I felt last week when I went to the doctor, so let’s just hope things don’t go downhill again.

There are a few things I have forgotten to mention in the past couple weeks due to everything else that has been going on:

1. Chad & I decided to get more diligent with Riley regarding dinner. Some nights we would insist that he eat what we were eating, other nights we would cave and give him what he asked for (i.e. cheetos, waffles, etc.) We decided that he needs to sit with us at the table and eat dinner. Now, if he doesn’t want to eat what we are eating that is fine, but he still has to sit with us and he can’t have something else instead. We also switched him to 2% milk as we thought maybe his tummy was getting too full on whole milk and there just wasn’t room for food. Well, the first night was pure torture and he threw an hour long temper tantrum, refused to sit at the table, and cried and then went to bed early with no dinner and no TV. But then miraculously, every night since then that we have had dinner at home, he has sat with us at the table. Some nights he ate well, others he ate some, but he did sit with us and did behave himself and I think he learned that if he behaves he gets fun things after dinner, like dessert or watching a bit of TV before bed. I am so glad we fought this battle before Carter’s arrival and I am so thankful to Chad for staying strong with me on the discipline. I couldn’t have done it without him!

2. My parents bought a toy box for Riley last week. It was supposed to be one of his Christmas presents, but they didn’t have the one I wanted at Christmas so we had to wait until they came in stock. I moved Riley’s small table and chairs to the living room and moved some of his toys and then put the toy box up in his bedroom. When he got home the first time to see his table in the living room, he said “Mommy got me a table!” I don’t think he realized I had just been rearranging! He was also very excited about the toy box and I am excited about having his toys put away and organized a bit better.

3. I think I can officially say I am 99% finished with Carter’s nursery. I went ahead and ordered the things that were remaining on my Land of Nod registry. They were a bunch of baskets to organize Carter’s clothes, etc as I do not have a chest of drawers upstairs, like I have in Riley’s room. Well, the order arrived, but was only half correct, so I am still waiting on a corrected shipment of 5 more baskets and then I will be done! Whew! I have started a small To-Do list and there are just a few things we still have to do in the next few weeks before we are officially ready for Carter to be here. I have no doubt that we will be ready when he arrives!

4. I have been having the worst acid reflux with Carter! I should probably buy stock in Rolaids. The frustrating thing has been that while I was on antibiotics I was unable to take any sort of antacids or my prenatal vitamins for two hours before or after I took the antibiotics. There was some serious medication scheduling going on in my house! My non-Rolaids way of dealing with the acid reflux has been to drink copious amounts of milk and milkshakes. Not great for my figure, but at this point who cares!! We bought 3 gallons of milk for this week and will probably go through all of it before the week is out! It’s ridiculous! I have reached that point that no matter what I eat (besides milk or milkshakes) I get some degree of acid reflux, so I am most ready for this baby to get off my stomach!!!

5. I have also given up on getting a good night’s sleep. Not only am I still waking numerous times in the night to go to the bathroom, Niki has started waking me up to go out one (or sometimes twice!) a night, as well as Chad sometimes snores and I just cannot get comfortable in bed. My entire body is just aching and soooo ready to be done being pregnant! I think Niki is having some jealousy issues as she has experienced us bringing a baby into the house before and she is misbehaving more than she usually does. I hope it’s just a passing phase with her and she will soon be back to her normal self.

I go back to the obgyn on Wednesday for my weekly visit so I’ll try to post again then!