Last night I had a dream about my first trip to Hawaii. It was so strange because it was like I was doing all of the exact same things that I'd done on the trip. So I just found all the pictures from that trip and looked at the places I'd been and a lot of what I did like 3 or 4 years ago in Kauai, happened exactly the same in my dream. But in my dream I never thought anything like, "Oh, I've been here before." It was all brand new in the dream, but it was all real life in the past. Get it?
Here are a couple events from my dream...these are real life pictures, not dream pictures.
In my dream I took these angled pictures of the ocean and sunset. I also met this guy Danny and he took me to Kilauea falls again, for the first time. And I went on this amazing rope swing the he built off the top of the waterfall. I watched him do amazing tricks, and was just as amazed as the first time I saw it, which hadn't happened yet in my dream, even though it had. I even slipped and fell on my butt in the dream, which also happened in real life 4 years ago.I met this guy for the first time, again. On the same beach as the first time. We went to the same sushi restaurant and I only ate white rice, again.Took a sunset cruise. Met this guy who worked on the boat. And saw these dolphins. I feel like I've done the exact same trip twice. Well, 3 times I guess, because I've been there twice in real life. It was a weird dream. It made me miss Hawaii. And traveling in general.
If I made a list of everything I've done the past month, it probably wouldn't look like much. Although I've decided that forgetting about the floor that hasn't been vacuumed for 2 and a half weeks, the wet clothes in the washer that I forgot to put in the drier yesterday, the dirty dishes, and the unmade bed, are all so much less important than sitting in a comfy chair with my sleeping baby. The first couple weeks of motherhood I tried to put Garrett down as soon as he fell asleep and then I'd run around like crazy catching up on the piles and messes before he woke up again. I decided last week that I'll look back on that way of doing things and regret it. So, my house is messy. I guess cluttery, but not dirty. (It's safe to live in... lets put it that way.) And I spend a lot of time cuddling with my precious little guy. It's perfect.
But today I was thinking. I've been texting with a friend this afternoon. We've been actively trying to get together for lunch for 23 days, and I just had to postpone again. By "actively" I mean, not like a weekly text or call seeing if sometime that week might work, it's been contact with each other at least every 2 or 3 days, several dates set and then changed, and even forgetting once that we'd planned it. That one was all me. Garrett and I were at therapy when I got the text, I'd forgotten and I had to cancel at the very last minute. We're both stay at home moms with babies just a couple weeks apart. You'd think it would be easy to do lunch. I'll let you know when we finally do it, because we're both determined!
Sometimes I feel like I spend so much time at home with G that we both get a little stir crazy. And other times I feel like we do way too much in a day or a weekend.
We try to go on a walk every day, but sometimes its too cold, sometimes its too hot, sometimes we have appointments, and sometimes we'd rather watch Ellen than get all bundled, strapped in, and ready to go. But usually we do pretty good.
It was a busy few days for us though. Friday night I went out with Deborah and Katie. We went shopping for Mara's bridal shower and out to dinner. Our husbands stayed at our house with G, ordered pizza, and watched baseball. It was nice to have a couple hours out with the girls, and the boys did just fine. Saturday G and I had some tummy time......mostly back time while I worked on birth announcements, but he was pretty content just laying there watching me. That afternoon I went out again with Katie to Mara's shower. Her husband (Jordon) came back over to our house, and they watched more sports and hung with G. And we all hung out for a bit after the shower.
Sunday Paul had to go to Ogden for work for a little while so we decided to go with him. He had to meet with a family so G and I went into an office and listened to music and played. I was a little nervous about being quiet enough and I also wanted to make sure I had enough stuff that I didn't need to leave the office. We did ok until the little poo situation. And by "little" I mean, "Wow, the fullest diaper I've ever seen, plus a little extra as I was taking the diaper off." Well, we ran out of wipes, got some poo on both of us and maybe a little on the carpet, and then we waited for Paul to finish. It was awesome...and stinky. We all survived. When Paul was done we headed to Target to stock up on wipes. It was G's first real shopping experience. He did really well. He's such a good baby. We made it back to Salt Lake in time to have dinner brought over by a couple from church and then we headed to Eagle Mountain. Scott and Laura just bought a house and they had a party Sunday night. After that we went to Mara's for a birthday party for Aron. And finally we ended the evening by going to see Jordon and Katie's house. We said we'd stay for a minute, and about 2 hours later we finally left. We've only know Jordon and Katie for a few weeks, but the 4 of us mesh really well, and we can spend hours together and the time flies by.
Monday we had some down time. G and I relaxed most of the day. He took a couple really good naps and I worked on a wall in our house that I'm adding some new pictures to. Monday night G had a couple hours of grandparent time and Paul and I met up with some friends for dinner. Our friends Jonny and Kim are in town for California so a group of us went to dinner. (I only take pictures of Garrett these days, I need to pull the camera out for other stuff too I guess.)
Today was a good day too. Melanie and her little man were heading to the zoo this afternoon and they invited us. It was such a nice day outside so Garrett had his first trip to the zoo! And look at all the pictures. He loved it!!! Ok, well, he opened his eyes for about 2 seconds the whole afternoon, but he looked like he was enjoying it. hah... I'll take a nap at the zoo over a fussy baby at the zoo any day. And this evening someone else brought us dinner and it got here just in time for a visit from Jonny and Kim. They had dinner with us and we visited for a couple hours. We think we got them all good and baby hungry! For sure Jonny, and he'll work on Kim.It's been a good few days. It's nice to get out among the living. I feel like we've been out a lot, but when I look back its mostly been doctor visits and treatments. It's nice to do fun stuff again! And nap time is good too...
So remember last week when my kid was 2 weeks and a day and I'd almost figured the parenting thing out? (sarcasm) Well, now he's 3 and a half weeks old and I really have it figured out. (sarcasm)
So here's a couple more updates on life at the White's. After I got all set on the chiropractor I got some hate mail. Well not hate mail, just some emails and phone calls about what could be not so good about it. I also got some that was really good and supportive. It overwhelmed me because every decision I make (and tell people about) and every doctor, nurse, specialist, friend, family member, whoever I talk to, I feel like I get a 50/50 response. Meaning 50% positive feedback/support, and 50% not so positive/supportive.
So last week I tried one more thing for sweet G and I'm done trying different people out. I've made a decision!...I think. (Paul has given me, in a nice way, the "That's what you get for putting our life online" talk. But if I didn't blog, I wouldn't journal, and then I'd forget everything, so here I go again.)
I took G to a Spinal Touch Therapist last week. My whole extended family use to go to a guy who did Spinal Touch and he was amazing. He helped me with endless headaches in my preteen years and I still remember how good he was. He's passed away since, and this women I went to last week is his protege. She trained from him and now has her own practice. She's mentoring 5 women to become Spinal Touch Therapists, and she works with them every Tuesday. My Aunt Shauna goes to her and she got in touch with her for me and asked her to look at Garrett. She's very booked and is not accepting new clients but my aunt convinced her. She asked if we'd be willing to come to the Tuesday class and let all the women watch her treat G. I agreed and we went. It was quite amazing. Garrett and I both had craniosacral work done at the same time, and we both have tightness in the same places, and we both had a lot of that tightness worked out. I wont go into all the immediate results I could see and feel in both of us because you probably wouldn't believe me, but its true. When I look at G, I can see corrections that have been made. The women were very into what was happening and they would all almost simultaneously say things they could see changing and improving as they watched the treatments. We'll go back weekly for a while, and I will of course keep you updated, whether you want me to or not. We have a ways to go, but its looking up. The one thing that everyone who has seen him has said is that if we did nothing he'd eventually grow out of it, but I believe there are great benefits to treating it at this young age. The women in the class said he's probably always in pain, but because he came out that way he doesn't know any different. That was enough for me feel good about doing what we're doing.
Here we are both being treated. Here are the two men I love so much I can hardly stand it. And here's the little one that I get to hang out with everyday. I'm a lucky lady. Oh and did I mention his "man stuff"? I'll really keep the details to a minimum on this one in case he reads this down the road. I don't want to traumatize him!
He was born with a swollen scrotum. Kinda normal I guess. The doctor decided to wait to circumcise. We took him to her a few days later and she was still a little worried about doing it herself. She sent us to Pediatric Urology at Primary Children's Hospital. I was freaking out thinking his stuff was broken or something. (It's not) We met a really great Urologist who in about 5 seconds of looking told us the problem. "Webbed Penis" Have you heard of it? Me either. The skin from the scrotum is attached a little too high on the penis and so to circumcise would be dangerous because too much skin would be cut and the scrotum could be damaged. Long story short. We leave it alone for now, but in 6 months my poor little guy has to have surgery to have the little problem fixed and the circumcision done. Ouch! So who wants to babysit my six month old for about a week in April?
It's hard to keep up these days, what with all the poop, spit up, pumping, feeding, laundry, nap attempts, crying, as well as all the non-baby stuff. But I don't want to get behind and forget stuff so I'm going to try a really short update of the first 2 weeks of sweet G's life.
The good stuff: -He's gained 9 ounces this week. -he grew 1/4" -He's not too fussy. -His poop doesn't stink that bad. -He's so dang cute!
The tough stuff (but we're hanging in there): -Not latching on -Tongue tie -Birth trauma -His misshaped head (due to being posterior during pregnancy) -My armpit lump
It's not as bad as it sounds. Unless it doesn't sound bad at all, then it's probably worse than it sounds.
Here's my quick version of what all that means. We've spent a lot of time (and money) the past week or so with nurses, doctors, lactation specialists, massage therapists, chiropractors, the Internet, and a speech pathologist (via telephone to my brother in Alaska). It was nice to have one person I needed this week that was free and in the family!
Garrett has yet to latch on, so I pump and we bottle feed. We shield and syringe fed, and finger fed a lot too. It's been exhausting and sometimes overwhelming, but not impossible. And I'm not letting the fact that my babies lips/tongue and my nipples are not compatible make me feel like less of a women or a bad mom. That statement comes after many tears and many pep-talks from everyone listed above and mostly my mom and my husband.
We've learned a lot about this little kid because of this issue and we're finally getting things under control. He has slight tongue tie due to being posterior. We might have a little procedure done to help fix that, but when my brother is here from Alaska for Halloween and checks G out, we'll have a better idea about that. Taylor will be opinion #4 on the tongue tie, and I'm feeling like its not quite as bad as opinion #1 said it might be. We've learned that posterior babies are stuck in the birth canal and it can be very painful and traumatic for them. I was dumb enough to think that because my champ of a kid turned on his own and came out the "normal" way, that everything was fine. It never occurred to me that being stuck in someones pelvic bone during 54 hours of contractions could cause a lot of pain and trauma to a little 6 pounder. Turns out it does. Sad, I know. It was recommended to us that because of his head issues (from being posterior) that we look into Cranio Sacral Therapy. Kids with this problem grow out of it over time but we just want to get some relief in G's neck, head and jaw. Everything on him from about the shoulders up is tight and tense, this therapy is suppose to help release that pressure. I had no idea what it was, but thanks to a really smart nurse who did a 2 hour in-home consultation and evaluation of G, and the internet, I know what it is now. I spent 2 days calling around to find the best and most educated massage therapists and chiropractors of this treatment. And after a lot of conversation with a few people and some great referrals, I found one of each. We took G to a massage therapist on Tuesday and he loved it, he was so relaxed! And on Thursday he had the same treatment from a chiropractor. After much thinking, talking, praying and evaluating with Paul and my AMAZING mom who came to both appointments and has helped pay for a lot of the above stuff, we're going with the chiropractor. G will have 3 treatments a week for 3-4 weeks and then we'll have another evaluation and we'll go from there. My hope is that we'll be done in 4 weeks or less, but we'll see!
(At the massage therapist)
And the lump. I found it in my left pit the day after we brought sweet G home. My doctor looked at it a couple days later, ordered an ultrasound of it, and removed it the next day. It had ruptured and was slightly infected, and took 3 times as long as she said it would, but she got it out and its nothing to worry about. It did however damage some milk ducts which has resulted in less milk on the left side. I still get enough for G, but the whole feeding thing is day to day for us and I'm learning to be ok with whatever we need to do to take care of our baby.
So that's it for the first 2 weeks. We're loving it though. And can I just say how much I love my mom?? I always knew she was amazing, but being a mom now and seeing her as a Grandma in action, I love her even more, (if that's possible). She's had several sleepovers with G, and its been so helpful. She also cleans, cooks, comes to appointments, babysits, and helps out financially as well. And a huge thanks to my dad too! He finally got my mom back after her 3 week trip to Europe with her sister, and then I took her for 2 weeks. He's been super supportive and helpful as well. I have an amazing husband, and we both have amazing parents and families. I don't think it could get much better.These are the faces my munchkin makes when he's trying to fall asleep. Best part of my day! And I can't believe I caught these with my camera. I impressed myself. Wow, what if I would have told you the long version??
I also met this guy Danny and he took me to Kilauea falls again, for the first time. And I went on this amazing rope swing the he built off the top of the waterfall. I watched him do amazing tricks, and was just as amazed as the first time I saw it, which hadn't happened yet in my dream, even though it had. I even slipped and fell on my butt in the dream, which also happened in real life 4 years ago.
I met this guy for the first time, again. On the same beach as the first time. We went to the same sushi restaurant and I only ate white rice, again.
Took a sunset cruise. Met this guy who worked on the boat.
And saw these dolphins.
I feel like I've done the exact same trip twice. Well, 3 times I guess, because I've been there twice in real life. It was a weird dream. It made me miss Hawaii. And traveling in general.
