Five things Friday

1.  Best ad campaign ever!

 

2.  Best excuse to workout ever!

3.  43!  That is how many items are currently on my shopping list.  Yikes.  I hate it when I have a huge list.  I like to get in and get out.  Guess that won’t be happening today.

4.  Packing to go anywhere with a baby requires a ton of stuff.  Today, we are just going to my office (gotta take my work stuff) and his doctor’s appointment (need the diaper bag).  Plus I need my purse.  I feel like a pack mule.  I can’t wait until his is big enough to carry his own stuff.  (not really)

5.  I need to stop waking up at 4:00 a.m. every day.  For some reason, this has been going on for a couple weeks now.  Today, it was 4:09.  Logan isn’t waking up, so I don’t know why my body seems to think that this is an acceptable time to start the day.

Happy birthday, Logan

My dearest Logan

I can’t believe that an entire year has gone by since I first held you.  We have been through a lot this year.  I’ve enjoyed watching you grow from a tiny little baby into a smart, funny, on-the-go toddler. 

We’ve had a few rough patches this year.  I would be more than thrilled if you could stay out of the hospital for the next, oh….25 years or so.  My heart breaks every time I hear you cough or when I can tell that you aren’t feeling your best.  I wish that I could take every illness away from you.  But, you are strong and pretty resilient. 

I love watching you learn.  You are amazed by books and you still love “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” even after the 100th reading.  I love seeing you respond to music by dancing and clapping your hands.  I can’t wait to see what the next year brings.  You are going to be learning new words and begging for more books.  Good thing Jaden is learning to read!  He is going to love reading to you.

Logan, you are the sweetest baby I have ever known.  You are easy to smile and laugh.  You are so affectionate and loving.  You snuggle and cuddle and love on people.  You make it so easy to love you.

I can’t wait to see what this year brings.  I know that it is going to be a fun one where I get to watch you grow and learn and love. 

You are the best surprise I was ever given.  I love you so much!

Of Dogs and Boys

Not quite as poetic as “Of Mice and Men,” but that title was already taken.

So, Logan came home from the hospital yesterday.  He only had to spend one night (yippee) and part of his birthday.  It really sucks to be in the hospital on your birthday, but there are some amazing people who did everything they could to make it a good day for him.

They brought him toys to play with.

They came in and did music therapy with him.  He loved it!!

   

 

They brought in a ton of gifts for him to open.  He actually made quite a haul…lucky kid.

They put up a banner outside his room.

The people at the hospital were fantastic.  I couldn’t have nicer things to say about them (except for the one resident who decided to barge into the room at 3:00 am, turn on all the lights and start asking all sorts of questions.  I hope he has a child who refuses to sleep through the night until high school.). 

But, as wonderful as everyone was, it is infinitely better to be home. 

We are still doing albuterol treatments every 4 hours.  That will continue at least until his follow up appointment on Friday.  We also have to do another nebulized medicine each evening.  He doesn’t like the nebulizer, so it can be a challenge.

Last night was pretty difficult. Logan was up at 3:15, so I did an albuterol treatment and gave him a bottle and put him back to bed.  Jaden woke up at 4:45 with a stomach ache.  When I went into his room, I saw that he had thrown up all over his bed.  Fun times.  I got him cleaned up, and his bedding changed and then he wanted me to lay with him until he fell asleep.  Right. 

When I went in to check on Jaden this morning, he seemed fine.  I asked him if he wanted to go to school and he said yes.  I asked how his stomach ache was.  He actually denied throwing up last night.  I guess it wasn’t too traumatic for him.  I half expected to get a call from his teacher today, but nothing yet.

Oh…about the dog (in the title), Jedi has found a new home. 

We have talked about getting rid of him for a while.  He is a nice dog, but he can get a little growly around kids.  He has actually bitten each of the boys.  He got Jaden when Jaden was about 2 years old.  And he nipped at Logan a couple months ago.  It is always super stressful for me whenever we have people over, especially kids, because I am on high alert, being sure to watch Jedi so that the kids don’t make any sudden movements around him.

Last Sunday, my dad came over and told me that there was a lady on his mail route who had recently lost her dog.  She was looking for an older dog, a small dog, something to keep her company.  I told dad that he could give her my phone number.  Today, she called and came up to meet Jedi…and she took him home with her! 

She is a retired school teacher and she will be able to spend much more time with him than we ever could.  She’ll be able to take him for walks in the summer.   I think he will be very happy there.  I hope she will be happy with him.  But, if she isn’t, I gave her an out.  She can bring him back at any time.  I’m a little worried about how Jaden will react when he gets home from school.

I still have a post I’m working on about Logan’s first birthday.  Maybe I’ll be able to get that up before the end of the week.

I can’t believe it is only Wednesday.  How has your week gone so far?

Deja vu

It’s RSV season.  Do you know what that means?  It means that I am spending the night in the hospital with Logan. 

I feel like we just did this.  Tim took Logan to the pediatrician today.  Even though I had made the appointment with the on-call doctor, we were able to see our regular pediatrician.  He listened to his lungs and we talked a bit about Logan’s history.  He decided that he would do a swab for RSV, do an albuterol nebulizer treatment in the clinic and then get a chest X-ray.

After all of that, Logan and Tim hung out in Pediatrics for a while so that Logan could fall asleep.  They wanted to check his oxygen saturation levels while he was sleeping.  While he was awake, they were about 92%-94%.  Not great, by any stretch, but not frighteningly bad all by themselves.  His oxygen levels were pretty much the same while he was sleeping. 

So, we were at a crossroads.  Do we take him home and keep an eye on him, or do we spend the night at the hospital?  Knowing that RSV gets worse before it gets better, and that we were only on day two, I wasn’t really comfortable with the idea of monitoring him at home.  And…ultimately, my gut told me that the hospital was the way to go.  I always trust my gut when it comes to my kids.

I’m glad that I went with my gut.  The RSV swab came back positive and the chest X-ray showed pneumonia. 

Did I mention that tomorrow is his birthday?

Tim stayed in the hospital with Logan until I got off work.  I get the overnight shift and then I’ll have to go back to work tomorrow and Tim will stay with Logan during the day.  I’m grateful that Tim’s employer is being so understanding and flexible.

The first few hours at the hospital, they did an albuterol treatment every hour.  Now we are doing that every four hours and he gets a second medication, through the nebulizer, every 8 hours. 

I am hoping that he doesn’t need an IV, but he isn’t working very well with me on that.  I told the resident that I would have Logan take an 8 oz bottle when I put him to bed.  Instead, Logan took 5 ounces, threw it up all over me, then took 3 more ounces. 

After that, it took me forever to get him to settle down and fall asleep.  Then they said that he needs his first dose of amoxicillin at 9:00pm.  Why wouldn’t they have given that earlier?  After I finally get him asleep, I have to wake him up to give him the medication?!?  I tried to get him to take it without waking up, but it just dripped down his face.

At 11:00, they are going to come in and give him another albuterol treatment.  (side effect of albuterol:  jitteriness)  I’m hoping that they will wait until the morning to give him the IV.  I don’t have high hopes for that.

I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep tonight.  Tomorrow is a pretty busy day at work.  I would have been overwhelmed even if my son wasn’t in the hospital, and even if I had gotten a full night’s sleep.  Neither of those things are going to happen. 

Please pray for Logan.  Pray that he will recover quickly.  Pray that the nebulizer treatments work.  Pray that we get to go home tomorrow.  Pray that I will suffer from situational amnesia and that I will forget that this ever happened.

Nap failure

Today, I tried to take a nap. 

I didn’t get to sleep until midnight last night.  Jaden had gone to a big sleepover at our church.  However, after he threw up twice, I got the call to come and pick him up.  We live 30 minutes from our church.  When I got to church, Jaden begged me to let him stay.  I wish I could have.  I could tell that he was having fun with the other kids.  I finally convinced him to come home by telling him that he and I could have a sleepover in his room.  I figured that I would let him sleep in his sleeping bag on the floor and I would sleep in his bed.  He decided that he would sleep in his sleeping bag IN his bed…and that I could sleep on the floor.  That didn’t last long.  I told him I had to go to the bathroom and I went to my bed, instead.

So, I was pretty tired today.  When Logan went down for his afternoon nap (he decided he didn’t want to nap this morning), I crawled into my bed.  I figured that I’d sleep for 45 minutes and then get up and finish the laundry and the approximately 87 other things that I needed to do.

You can probably guess what happened next.  I couldn’t fall asleep.  I laid there for 45 minutes thinking about the laundry in the dryer that needed to be folded, and the laundry in the washer that needed to go in the dryer, and the loaf of homemade bread I wanted to make, and the cleaning that needed to be done before Logan’s birthday party tomorrow.  I couldn’t sleep.  My 45 minutes was up.  Instead of getting up and doing any of those things, I gave myself another 45 minutes.  I was sure I could shut my brain off and fall asleep.  Right.  Forty-five minutes later…now I’ve been laying there for an hour and a half.  And now, I have to go to the bathroom, so I might as well get up.  Nap failure.

Now, I’m trying to make the aforementioned homemade bread.  Nervous.  I hope it works out.  I’ve only ever made bread with my bread maker, so this is uncharted territory.  I fear that it may take the dough days to rise…..considering it is about 3 degrees outside.  If I didn’t have laundry to put in the dryer, I could put the dough in there to let it rise.  Wish me luck.  I hope it turns out.

In other news…Logan turns one in three days.  I refuse to believe it.

January update

Is anyone else having a hard time believing that January is over already?  We are a little more than 8% done with 2012.  How are those resolutions coming?

One of my resolutions this year was to (finally) run 1000 miles.  After today’s 4.75 miles, I have 63 miles for the year.  That leaves me with 937 miles left…averaging out to 85.2 miles per month.  Challenging, but doable!  Half marathon training starts next week and I still plan on doing a marathon in the fall.  This is also the most miles I’ve run since May of 2011.  Hmmm…what would have slowed me down after that?

I finished the accelerated class I was taking in January (got an A!).  This was my last pre-requisite for the nursing program!  However, in the process, I strained the muscles in my eyes for near focus.  For a few days, I couldn’t really see anything, everything was really blurry.  I went to see the eye doctor who basically told me to stop wearing my contacts, wear my glasses (to move the focal point further from my eyes), get through my class, give my eyes a break, and then get my eyes examined for a new prescription.  So…tomorrow I go in for an eye exam, and likely a new prescription.  Which stinks, because I have two full boxes of contacts that I can’t wear.    Love wasting money.

Logan is getting tubes in his ears next Monday…a week before his first birthday.  When we went in for the pre-op appointments last week, his pediatrician prescribed two different nebulized medications.  We are doing Albuterol as needed to try to clear up some of the gunk in his lungs.  And we are doing Budesonide every night for the next 8 weeks to try to prevent childhood asthma.  It breaks my heart to hear him coughing and trying to breathe through all the congestion.  And he HATES the nebulizer.  He fights it with everything he has.  The only way we can give him the treatment is to do it at night when we are putting him to bed.  I’ll sit in the chair and give him his bottle, and Tim will hold the nebulizer and do the treatment.  The bottle seems to settle him down enough.  I have tried to do the Albuterol while he is napping, but last time, it woke him up.  And this morning, he didn’t sleep long enough for me to get in there.  Maybe the afternoon nap?

Does anyone have any suggestions to make the nebulizer process any easier?

MLK Day

Jaden and I just had a great conversation as I was putting him to bed.  He explained to me what he learned at school on Martin Luther King, Jr. day.  It went something like this.

Jaden: Mom, who’s birthday was it the other day?

Me: I don’t know.

Jaden:  You know, that guy we learned about at school.

Me: Oh, Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Jaden: Yeah, him.  Did you know someone shot him?

Me: I did know that.

Jaden: Why would someone shoot him?

Me: Well, there were some people who didn’t like the things he was saying.

Jaden: But he wasn’t saying bad things.  He was telling people to be kind and to be respectful.

Me: What other things did you learn about him?

Jaden: Well…(takes a deep breath), when he was alive, if you had dark colored skin, you had to sit in the way back of the bus.  And if you had light colored skin, you had to sit in the front of the bus.

Me: Why do you think they had that rule?

Jaden: I don’t know.

Me: Do you think it was a good rule?

Jaden: No. It doesn’t make any sense.  You should be able to sit wherever you want.  It doesn’t make a difference if you have dark colored skin or light colored skin.  What does that have to do with riding on the bus?  So, that guy…what’s his name again?

Me:  Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Jaden: Yeah, him.  He said that people should be able to sit anywhere on the bus.  And he said that you should be nice to other people, because they are all the same.  Just, some people have dark skin and some people have light skin. 

 

Seems pretty simple to me. 

Walking

Guess what’s been going on at our house?

 

Logan will be 11 months old next week.  It appears that he has this walking thing down.  How long until he can run faster than I can?

Looking ahead to 2012

After looking back at the year that was, the logical thing is to look ahead to the next year.  Last year, I set some resolutions.  I wanted to run 1,000 miles in 2011.  Well, I fell REALLY short on that one.  I had hoped to get closer (I had over 900 miles in 2010), but my body didn’t recover after childbirth very quickly.  I was also challenged to find time to run…what with work and school and taking care of an infant.  I managed to run a little more than 400 miles.  I added another 200 or so miles on the bike.  2012 is the year I WILL hit 1000 miles.

In 2011, I had planned to run another marathon.  Once again, that didn’t happen.  I didn’t get selected for the ING New York City marathon.  I had thought about running either Milwaukee or Twin Cities, but when my body took its time recovering after having Logan, I had to let go of the idea of running a marathon.  This time, I am determined.  I have a friend who wants to run Chicago in October.  I’m already working on my half marathon training plan for April.  In a few weeks, I’ll take a look at starting on the marathon training plan.

My other running resolution for 2011 was to incorporate speed work into my running.  I can’t say that I was very specific with this.  I did work on increasing my speed and managed to achieve a faster ‘easy’ pace.  I also set a new PR in the 5K.  This year, my training plan has some specific speed work built in.  I’m really hoping to PR in the half marathon and the marathon this year.  Any PR’s in the shorter distances would be an added bonus.

Additionally, I plan to do a couple more duathlons in 2012.  Nothing specific in the way of resolutions, just hoping to get more consistent with miles on bike.

In non-running related news…my biggest goal for the year is to (finally) start the nursing program.  I was horribly disappointed when I found out that I wouldn’t be able to do the one year BSN program at UW-Oshkosh (because of classes that didn’t transfer).  I am taking a 3 week course in January that is the last (!) of the prerequisites required for the RN program at the tech school.  I will take an entrance exam in March and find out by summer if I can begin the program in August, 2012.

Looking back on 2011

I can hardly believe that another year is coming to an end.  I think time actually goes faster as I get older.  Like a lot of people, I like to look back at the year that was and take some time to reflect on everything that happened in the last 12 months.  It is fun to remember the good times, and to learn from the not-so-good times.

January

I started school again.  I began taking more prerequisites to get into a nursing program.

We got rid of Nola.

We had a little baby shower.

February

I had another little baby shower, with some of the most wonderful ladies ever!

The Packers won the Super Bowl!!  (I hope I get to write that again next year.)

I discovered dough balls.

On Valentine’s Day, I had a baby!

Logan got jaundice, and got to wear the bili light.

March

Logan got RSV and spent a total of 16 days in the hospital.  That’s about it.  Nothing else really happened in March.  Hospitals are no fun…especially for babies, or their momma’s.

April

We started out the month in the hospital.  But we were SO happy to finally be able to go home.

I also got a bike!

Tim and I ran Crazy Legs…my first post-baby race.

May

I ran 10 miles in my attempt to train for a half marathon (the race never happened).

We had a BBQ at a friend’s place to celebrate Memorial Day.

June

We went to Orlando to celebrate my father-in-law’s 80th birthday.

I ran my second Bellin.  So did Jaden.

Jaden started swimming lessons.

July

I got called for Jury Duty…but got out of it!

I did my first duathlon!

August

I got my first age-group award (3rd place).

We built a garden…with a little help from our friends.

I did my second duathlon!

I chopped off my hair for Locks of Love.

September

Jaden started kindergarten.

Logan turned 7 months old.

I took a CNA class.

October

Tim and I did the Green Bay Duathlon…as a relay.

I went to a Badger game with my dad.

I went to my 15 year high school reunion.

November

Jaden and I ran the Hewitt Pumpkin Run.

Tim drove to Illinois to buy a new Jeep.

Tim and I ran a Turkey trot on Thanksgiving.

I ran the Noodleini for the third year in a row…and set a new 5K PR!!

December

I had to have surgery.  It sucked.

Jaden cut his eye.

Jaden turned six.

 

 

I am interested to see what 2012 will bring for us.  I’m hoping to set some resolutions in the next day or two (and them make them public here).  I know one thing for sure…I certainly plan to avoid hospitals for quite a while!