nerdwagon.org

This month has flown by. I really cannot believe Christmas is on Friday. How does that happen?

This hasn’t been a very happy month. On Monday night our Carbon Monoxide detector went off around 2 AM or so. It was reading about 50. Gene would crack the door and the number would go down to zero. He’d close it and the heater would kick back on and it would go off and read 50. We cranked the heater way down so that it wouldn’t kick on and went back to bed. First thing Tuesday I began calling around to find someone to come look at our furnace. Someone came by to look at it, found some pretty bad cracks in the heat exchanger and gave me an estimate for around 4 mortgage payments to replace the furnace. We stayed the night at my parent’s house since the temps were going to dip down into the 20s that night. They came out the next morning at 10 AM and by 8 PM that night we had heat again. Spending that much money right now was not on our list of things to do, well, EVER honestly.. but what can you do? I am just thankful that we had a carbon monoxide detector and that we are ALIVE. Especially Zoey. A reading of 50 on a CM detector is HIGH for an infant :(

My mom’s dog (who is only 8) stopped eating a few weeks ago. He had been going to the vet to figure out what is going on. They thought it was a bad tooth and pulled 3 bad teeth and he still would not eat or get better. Finally took him to a specialty hospital where they did exploratory surgery and found a peach pit lodged in his intestines. They took it out, cut 4 inches of his intestines out and sewed him back up. He was doing well but needed a transfusion. Somehow over night last night he went down hill.. The infection spread into his stomach and blood stream and his entire body was septic. They put him down this morning. We got him as a little puppy back when I was still living at home. He was always a little sh*t dog.. but we loved him for that. He had personality and was a cuddle buddy to me when I lived there and to my sister after I moved out of the house. I don’t know what it is but whenever I think about him not being there any more, my heart feels heavy and my stomach drops. I am beyond sad about this and finding it hard to put my feelings into words :(

Things can only get better right? I mean, in the last 1 1/2 years my Grandma passed, my Grandpa passed and now my “brother dog” passed. Zoey has been our little ray of sunshine through all of the sadness we’ve experienced and we’re really hoping that things can only look up from here. Hopefully we can all laugh about all of the crazy things Toby used to do and remember what a sweet dog he was while still enjoying Christmas this year. It’s Zoey’s first, after all.

Candy :: Dec.19.2009 :: Family, Holidays, Tragedy :: 3 Comments »

Today has been really nostalgic for me as I looked back through the pictures of Zoey’s birth and those first few weeks of her life. You guys told me I would be wondering how she was so small when I looked back on these pictures and sure enough, I am wondering if those were even real? How could a baby be so teeny tiny!?!

So I thought I would write up a quick little list of the things I miss about Zoey’s newborn days. Everyone always asks if I liked the newborn stage or the current stage better and my answer is: I LOVE all of the stages!! They are all different and so unique in their own ways. I love little bits and pieces from every single stage.

Things I miss from when Zoey was a newborn:

• I miss the time when we were in the hospital. Gene and I kept Zoey in the room with us at all times. He would go get us ice cream and drinks from the lounge. He would feed Zoey, change her, help me with whatever I needed. I would say that we were alone in our hospital room with Zoey about 85% of the time! It was a lovely time as we learned together about how to take care of a newborn baby. Most people hate hospital stays but I really felt like we had so much time together. We had “fun” and just a generally great experience!
• I miss the first few weeks when Gene was off work and home with us. We would just hang out and do the mommy/daddy thing. I am sooo thankful that he was able to be off work for about 6 weeks with me. It was a HUGE help!
• That sleepy newborn stage where they sleep through every single sound is long gone and I wont lie, I totally miss that! I miss being able to have my sleeping baby in the pack n play in our living room where all of the hustle & bustle is going on. Now she is in her crib in her bedroom with the door cracked and I am still finding myself trying to keep the noise level down.
• I miss those blistered newborn lips from all of the sucking. I know that seems like a weird thing to miss but I really do. It’s just one more sign that we no longer have a newborn on our hands.
• I miss Zoey sleeping next to me in her co-sleeper at night. I miss being able to turn over and see her laying there.
• Those tiny newborn gowns that we used to keep her in at night for easy diaper changes.
• I miss being able to change her diaper without her trying to roll over all over the place and without sticking her hands “down there” thus making a huge mess!
• And MOST of all, I miss being able to sleep in the chair with Zoey skin-to-skin inside of my night gown and blankets on top of us. There is something so calming and so soothing about having a peaceful, teeny tiny little baby sleeping on you and feeling sooo close and so in love in that moment.

Is it time to have another one yet? Hee hee :)

Candy :: Dec.10.2009 :: Baby, Zoey :: 2 Comments »

Notice anything different?

It’s the ears! This morning we took Zoey to the doctor’s office to have her ears pierced. The doctor we saw was really nice and explained everything about the procedure in great detail. Gene held some little cotton swabs of some kind of liquid on her ear lobes for a few minutes, this was numbing the surface of her ears. I realize this wasn’t going to really take all of the pain away but I figured my job as a parent was to do whatever I could to make it as painless as possible. She came in, cleaned her ears, marked them with a marker, I checked the markings to make sure they were even and then we proceeded.

I figured Zoey would be more comfortable in our arms than with a nurse holding her down so I held her on my lap while Gene held her head in place. She started to cry before we even started, I think from being held down. The doctor did one ear at a time and it was over. She cried briefly and by time we were leaving the office she was happy and smiling. She just looks so precious :)

The earrings are a new kind of earring that is made from plastic so it’s completely non-allergenic. You don’t have to turn the earrings all of the time and you don’t have to put peroxide on them anymore. Great!! Less maintenance. All she said was to wash them with soap when you give her a bath and turn it a little when you do that. After 6 weeks we will need to change out the earrings into regular ones as the post on these are a little bigger than regular ones. She is doing GREAT and has been a gem all day today.

She has been acting her normal self but I noticed her face was warm today so I took her temperature and it was 100.5! She has been trying to eat EVERYTHING today, drooling a bit more than usual and she has had a really awful diaper rash the last few days so I am guessing that maybe she is teething. Her gums have been swollen for months now but I haven’t felt anything popping through so who knows! Gene slathered her poor red bottom up with Eucerin and put her in a disposable diaper for the night. I’ll put her back in cloth tomorrow morning and try to change her diaper every hour so that she isn’t sitting in a wet diaper for a long period of time. She cried so hard when I was wiping her bottom tonight. That totally broke my heart and I felt so awful :( It was a worse cry than when she had her ears pierced this morning!

Zoey has been drinking four 7oz bottles a day for a few months now but this last week has gone down to about three 6oz bottles a day. So crazy. She is still only eating 2 solids a day but I am starting to incorporate bananas and cheerios into her diet. Yesterday she ate almost an entire small banana!

Well.. I better get to bed. I need to work on some knitting and try to get mentally prepared for the next couple of days. I am going to be trying to clean my house in the next couple of days as we will be having family visiting this weekend for our family Christmas. I’m so excited to see everyone that I haven’t seen in so long!

Candy :: Dec.08.2009 :: Baby Food, Cloth Diapers, Zoey, Zoey's Firsts :: 2 Comments »

I just wanted to write and say the same thing that everyone else is already saying: It’s ALREADY December??? Where in the world did October and November go??

Zoey loves to shimmy her way underneath the tree and then look up at all the lights and ornaments. She loves to play with garland and pull little strands of tinsel off the tree. She doesn’t try to eat it, she just likes to feel it between her fingers. She is such a sweetheart these days and the only time she ever really cries or fusses is when she is going down for a nap or bed and doesn’t feel like she is ready.

Candy :: Dec.01.2009 :: Holidays, Zoey :: 2 Comments »