The list on my phone...

I have a list on my phone of things I don't want to forget to mention at some point on my blog, mostly uninteresting stuff, but stuff I want to remember.  Instead of blogging about any of it though, the list just keeps growing.  So this may be my most random post to date, but it's everything on my list!

1.  It takes Garrett about a week to recover after being with my mom.  This last time was the worst one yet. He cries for Mimi.  He wants to call her all the time.  Putting him to bed is usually simple, but after Mimi leaves it's an emotional nightmare, and often I just have to let him cry himself to sleep.  As soon as he wakes up he asks for her.  And he tells me he's sad, just out of the blue.  His bottom lip quivers when I tell him it'll be a few weeks before we can see her again, and when he hears that, the poor little guys eyes well up and he fights back the tears.  When we do talk to her on the phone he won't say good-bye because he doesn't want it to end, so when I finally just give up and hang up he cries and cries...   "No!  Mimi, Mimi! No!  Bye, Bye! No! BYE!"  It kind of breaks my heart.  But the heartless side of me got a picture of the last hang up, ya know, for the memories.

2.  Addie loves her big brother.  If she gets up in the morning before him (which she usually does), she's grumpy and fussy until he's awake.  A few days ago she was driving me nuts.  She wouldn't eat, she wouldn't play, she was getting into everything she shouldn't, and when I stopped her she'd cry and cry.  I finally heard Garrett waking up as I was doing the dishes, so I said, "Lulu, should we see if Garrett's awake?!"  She was digging in the garbage when I asked, and she looked up with a big smile and said, "Yeah!" as she ran past me.  I didn't think she'd go to his room because all the lights were off and the further you go down the hall the darker it gets.  Especially into Garrett's room because he doesn't have windows.  But sure enough, a few seconds later I hear through the monitor, "Hi!  Hi, hi, hi!! HIIIIII!!!!"  Then quietly from Garrett, "Hi, Wu."

2a.  Now whenever Garrett isn't around she runs to his room.  We have to remember to but the security gate in the hall if he's napping because she'll go wake him up if she's bored.

2b.  When I go to get her from her crib she looks past me to see if Garrett is coming in behind me.  And on the days he is there, she gets so excited.  She jumps up and down and laughs and says Hi!  Hi-Hi-yiyiyiyi!!

2c.  I get frustrated when G doesn't share with her or he tries to push her away, but when I sit and watch them, I'd probably do the same thing sometimes...she does not leave him alone!

3.  I never revisited my depression crash from back in October.  Here's the really short version.  The meds made me happy, but it felt like fake/medicated happy.  I can't explain that, so I won't try.  I also hated the weight gain side effect.  That was making me more depressed than depression.  I quit them one day, cold turkey.  If you're on anti-depressants and thinking of stopping, wean off them under doctor supervision.  Don't just stop one day.  Wow.  The withdrawal side effects were like nothing I'd ever experienced, or could describe.  Blurred vision, dizziness, insomnia, anxiety, headaches.  And the worst one, brain tremors.  It was awful and so scary.  And looking back, I'm not sure how I parented for those 2 weeks.  It took about 3 weeks to fully get over the withdrawal, but for about two weeks I laid down a lot, kept the house kind of dark, and didn't drive.  But I'm ok now.  I never took the meds again and I'm not on anything now.  Just taking Cod Liver Oil (awesome stuff) and exercising more.  I always feel a little scared, like, what if a crash is right around the corner.  But I feel really aware of myself and my situation and I feel like I'm managing my hard times better.

4.  And speaking of anti-depressants, (you may want to skip over this one, but I want it for my records).  I nursed Addie exclusively for almost 5 months.  And pumped and froze milk like I was a lone cow responsible for feeding a small village.  I knew I wanted and needed medication, but I put it off as long as I could because nursing was important to me.  When I started the meds, I still nursed for a while, but I'd take them at night right after a feeding and then try and go as long as possible without nursing or pumping, hoping to get them out of my system or something.  My doctor said it was ok to nurse, but I was nervous.  There were too many uneasy things I'd heard her say running through my head, like, "They say if you have to take something, this one's the best while nursing." or "You should be ok to keep nursing."  or "There's not much research about nursing while on this medication, but it's probably the best one for it."  I finally had my friend call her step-mom who is a family practice doctor, just to get more of a personal opinion.  She used similar responses, but when asked if she would nurse while on it, she said, "probably not."  I quit nursing.  I beat myself up and put myself down for needing medication more than wanting my baby to have my milk.  But I know it's what I had to do at that time in my life for myself and my family.  I had enough good milk in my freezer to give Addie formula and breast milk until she was almost 11 months old.  It's a lot better than I did with Garrett, and it's all I could provide for her, and I finally feel ok about it.

5.  My nephew is just over 3 months old and he's still in the NICU.  He's getting stronger everyday, but it's been a really long and slow process.  He still has a bad day from time to time, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel.  They learned a couple of weeks ago that he had Pyloric Stenosis so he had to have a small surgery for that.  He had a pretty bad day right after, but is doing much better now.  He'll go home on oxygen, so right now feeding is the main thing keeping him there.  They started bottle feeding yesterday and he's doing awesome.  He's a little trooper and I'm so proud of him and impressed with my brother and sister in law.  This has been a long hard road for them, and will continue to be for a while.

5a.  Something cool about William's situation.  A few weeks ago they were meeting with a nurse or therapist at the hospital about his future at home plans, and it was mentioned that they typically refer babies in this situation to have some speech therapy and help with feeding at the Learning Center of St. George.  This made Taylor's day because he is THEE Speech Therapist at The Learning Center of St. George and during his schooling he specialized in feeding.  Good career choice!  He'll be able to help William so much on a daily basis, and he knows what he's doing and is really good at it!

6.  I don't think I mentioned much about my mom's trip, other than in my first 365 post.  We didn't do much, but it was great to have her here, and it went by so fast.  We went on walks, played at the park, went out to eat, and she did some sewing for me.  I'd purchased fabric for some little cushion seats for the kids that looked easy enough to make.  I'm so glad she did them for me!  I'm not there yet in my sewing skills,  The kids love them.

7.  The kids love the play kitchen I made them for Christmas.  I may do a more detailed post about how I did it, but not right now.  We spend a lot of time eating plastic eggs and tomatoes, and drinking nothing from our cups, and licking a lot of fake ice cream cones.  Garrett has a great imagination.  I often see him push his sleeves up to "wash his hands" and he always "dries" them off.  He also uses a hot pad to open the oven door.  It's so cute.  He loves to lay his apron and hand towel on the ground and iron them.  I think we'll have years of fun with this addition to our playroom.

8.  Addie thinks all animals make the monkey sound.  It's probably because monkeys are Garrett's favorite animal at the moment and that's the sound he makes the most.  It's so cute though, when there's a dog on TV, Addie bounces up and down and says, "oo, oo, ah, ah."  She does it when she picks up her bunny and even sometimes when she's playing with a doll.  It's too soon to correct her because I like it too much.  I think Addie will talk at a much younger age than Garrett.  I haven't mentioned much about his delayed speech because my brother has worked with him and no one thinks we need to worry.  Garrett has just in the past couple of weeks started to put words together, like, "Mom help please."  "Two more cars."  "Wu go nigh night."  He's still a boy of few words, but it changes everyday and Whites and Greenhalghs have often been late talkers so I'm not worried.  Addie often tries to repeat things she hears and she has a handful of pretty clear words already.  The older they get, the more I feel like they'll learn new things together...like maybe how to pee in the potty...