Him: How baby doing? (Try to imagine a very thick Chinese accent)

Me: She’s great!

Him: Good! She no have hair huh? *chuckle chuckle* (Still imagining the Chinese accent?)

Me: Yeah *laugh* It’s growing in a lot more now though!

Him: Oooh *chuckle* She look better with hair, ya know (Are you laughing yet?)

The brutal honesty of their culture can either totally hurt your feelings or make you laugh hysterically. It never hurts my feelings because I just know how they are. The funnier part is that my husband already had this EXACT same conversation with him last time he talked to him, which wasn’t too long ago. So now we are wondering if they think she is going to grow up bald LOL!

By the way, I just wanted to point out that my husband was born and raised in the U.S. and (thankfully) didn’t inherit some of the more blatant aspects of the Chinese culture. Oh and I love my in-laws.. Just thought this was pretty hilarious!

My Mama went in Tuesday morning for surgery on the right side of her neck, to clean out a blocked Carotid Artery. She had the left side done at the end of July and was finally healed up enough to get the right one taken care of. Her surgeon wanted to get these taken care of as soon as possible due to risk of having a stroke.

During her last surgery in July, she was discharged from the hospital the very next day. This time? Not so lucky. She had a rough start because her blood pressure dropped severely low after surgery, therefor they were unable to give her ANY IV pain medication and it was quite a while after being in recovery before they actually gave her any oral pain medication. She described it as being stabbed in the neck, fully conscious but with no adrenaline running through your blood to help you deal with the pain. Sounds pretty terrifying, if you ask me. I spent the night with her on Tuesday night and everything went seemingly well other than she was pretty nauseated and feeling bad all night. By time I went home early Wednesday morning (Dad was doing day shifts, I was doing nights), she was off of the monitors and only on an IV fluid drip. Things were looking great. Went home and got some rest, took care of my Peanut all day.

Wednesday night I talked to my Dad and I was surprised that she still had not been discharged. I spent some time with my husband when he got home from work that evening and then packed my bag and headed back up to the hospital, thinking that she would probably be discharged later that evening. When I walked into the hospital room, to see her laying in bed, with an ice pack on her neck, hooked back up to all of the machines and monitors and looking pretty terrible, I was immediately in shock. Pretty sure there was some major jaw droppage going on, too. Dad briefed me on what happened. Something about coughing, her incision opening, bleeding everywhere, lots and lots of swelling, etc. I settled in because I figured we would once again be having a long night. I was right, boy was I right! This night was possibly one of the most terrifying nights of my life! Mom’s neck was so swollen that you couldn’t even tell where her chin started or ended, her neck was HUGE. She started with this wheezing/heavy breathing in her sleep and it progressively got worse. She started to feel like she couldn’t breathe and would panic off and on throughout the night. I kept having to jump up and push the nurse call button because she would grasp the side of the bed, look frightened to death and appear to be choking. Finally after about 4 1/2 hours of this non-stop, they gave her a low dose of Morphine in her IV and she (and myself) was able to sleep solid for a good one or two hours!

The nurse, along with the tech and a few other nurses came in during the night when she was having these panic episodes and came to the conclusion that it was bleeding internally in her neck and that blood had pooled around her trachea causing her to have the “strangling feeling” that she was experiencing. The good thing was that her oxygen sats were great so she wasn’t actually losing oxygen. The Morphine helped calm down her anxiety and panic attacks and let her sleep peacefully for a while.

I briefed Dad on what was going on and left Thursday morning to head home. Thankfully my husband is an AMAZING MAN and stayed home from work all day to let me sleep. Not only that but he took Zoey outside to play a lot that day so that I could get some peaceful, restful sleep. Amazing man, right?

Went back up to the hospital Thursday evening and Mom was looking a LOT better. The first thing the nurse said when I walked in was “You can see her chin again” and he was right, you COULD! I was amazed at how much of the swelling had gone down in just that afternoon. I was just sure she would go home the next morning… But no.

Thursday night would be the second most terrifying night of my life! We were having a great time. My sister came up to the hospital and we all sat and chatted for a good hour or two. She left and Mom and I settled in for a quiet night. We thought we would catch up on some rest and be discharged in the morning. She wasn’t on any IVs or monitors.. She was a free woman! Around 11:30 PM she stated “What a great night this is going to be! I’m free of monitors and I will be able to go to the bathroom whenever I want without having to bug the nurses…” and I kid you not, it was about a few minutes after she said this out loud, we had about 5 nurses rush into her room! All of a sudden they reclined her bed all the way, quickly boosted her up in the bed, started hooking her up to EVERY machine and IV again.. Basically freaking me OUT! Mom looked TERRIFIED. I finally had to say, WHAT IS GOING ON?? I mean, they couldn’t even tell us what the heck was going on??? It was out of nowhere!

Well, her heart rate had jumped up to 175-180. the next several hours were a blur. They had to page her cardiologist. They started IV meds as per his suggestion to get her heart back into normal rhythm. Not happening. They started a different IV med as per his 2nd suggestion and it worked. We both fell asleep for 3 hours. I got up at 4, I believe and I asked the nurse how her heart was doing. She said it worked for 2 hours but was back up. They talked about possibly having to shock her heart back into normal rhythm but wasn’t sure what they would do yet. Called Dad yet again to deliver the disappointing news and headed home. My AMAZING HUSBAND stayed home late and let me sleep in a little bit before heading to work. My WONDERFUL FATHER brought me lunch that day.

Back to the hospital Friday evening, hoping and wishing that everything was improving. I walked in and the very first thing I looked at was the heart monitor and it said 72. I was like, HER HEART IS BETTER?? Dad said it had been about 128. I said uh, it says 72. Right behind me the nurse walks in and says she had finally converted that very second and that her heart was back in sinus rhythm. AMAZING! Dad left later that evening and Mom and I actually had an uneventful night. THANKFULLY. After those last two scary nights, all of the ups and downs over the 3 nights prior, I know we were both (especially her) ready for everything to go smoothly. She wanted SO badly to get out of the hospital and was sick of being hooked up to all of these machines and being stuck in that terrible uncomfortable bed.

She is home now, recovering from the surgery. Swelling is only in the area of the incision on her neck. I think she is doing a LOT better, though having some issues with stamina and energy after the surgery and all of the shenanigans that went on afterward. You never want to see someone you love in pain, especially your Mama. It was difficult but I think I kept my cool the entire time. It was a monstrous lesson in growing up. I am just so glad she is okay because I love her so much!!!

- My Daddy had a heart attack a couple of weeks ago. He is ok and doing better. He is eating better, exercising and taking care of hisself. It was the scariest thing ever. As a kid, you feel as though your parent’s are invincible and then as you get older, you realize how fragile life really is but at the same time, it is hard to let go of that notion that Parents and Grandparents should be immortal!

- My Mama is having some medical trouble as well. I’m confident that everything will be ok as long as she takes care of herself and goes to her doctor appointments. If you pray, could you please say a prayer for her? If you don’t, you could send some happy vibes our way.. Either way, we need some good karma and positive thinking send towards our family!

- I am PREGNANT! Crazy, I know! Hah. I just found out recently and I am due February 25, 2011, which means I am only about 4 weeks along. I wont get to see my OB until July 23rd, which seems soooo far away. It is my first time seeing this guy and I can’t wait to meet him.. I’ve heard amazing things about him! I wish there was some way to fast forward through the first trimester. Between worrying about miscarriage and baby’s health and the nausea and exhaustion.. It really isn’t a pretty time at all!

I’m gonna try to get back into the bloggy swing of things here. I’ve been such a slacker lately. I have a 14 month old little girl to blame THAT on. Describing her as a hand full would be an understatement at times ;)

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.

We took Z to a new pediatrician today. I liked my old one but just didn’t feel like we were getting enough time and attention in the appointments. I actually took her to my pediatrician! The same guy that I saw from birth to about 18 years old when they finally kicked me out and told me I was too old to be seeing a pediatrician. We introduced Z to him and they gave her the other half of her seasonal flu shot. All in all, it was an excellent appointment! She’ll go back next month for the other half of her N1H1 vaccine and then we’ll see them again in January for her 9 month well baby check up.

Z is doing wonderful. She is such a fun and happy baby. Always smiling and laughing. The only time she ever cries is if she gets too hungry or when we put her down for naps or to bed at night. She has learned at a very early age that going to bed is For The Birds. She will usually fall asleep pretty quickly after putting her down. She also still needs a pacifier when going down for naps and bed which kind of bothers me but we still have a few more months before we really need to start the weaning process.

Oh and one new thing is that Z looooves cheerios or puffs. I’ve been giving her the puffs but I realized I could just as easily (and much much cheaper) give her Cheerios! She is still working on her coordination to get them into her mouth so only a few ever actually make it to her mouth (lucky Emma gets all the goodies that fall from the high chair!) which causes the OCD in me to kick in and start hand feeding them to her. I know she needs to learn and I try to stop myself from doing it but I wont lie, sometimes I just can’t help myself.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!! I am really excited for Thanksgiving dinner and just spending time at my parent’s house. I’ll be honest, when I first moved out of the house and into an apartment with Gene, it didn’t feel like “home.” I still felt like I wanted to be at my parent’s house a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I loved being able to share a life with him but I just didn’t have that warm home feeling that I did at my parent’s house. So anyway, give or take 5ish years later and I really feel like our home is “home.” I think the day that happened was the day that we bought this house. And I actually like being at my house. I like everything about it and I really feel like THIS is home now. But I also love going back to my parent’s house and hanging out there because in the bottom of my heart, that will always be home.

On that note, I’ll leave you with a picture of my little peanut. Doncha just love her cloth diaper? Too cute to put pants over!

Tonight my heart is heavy. While I was laying in bed, trying to take my mind off of the pain in my left hip, I started to think about Grandma and Grandpa. I started to think of all of the holidays ahead and how even though Grandma wasn’t with us last year, we at least had Grandpa. And this year? They are both gone. And I’m wondering how my heart will be able to handle it? I guess with it being Z’s first Christmas, it will help lighten the mood a little. I mean, it’s the circle of life, right? So she is just starting the next round. But it’s hard to teach your heart to remember but not dwell.

I never wrote a tribute to Grandpa. Not on paper (or computer, however you want to look at it. Who uses paper these days?) anyway. I’ve written about a thousand of them in my head, late at night when I can’t fall asleep. I’ve told him how much I love him, I’ve talked about all of the great times I had with him as a kid and even as an adult, I’ve spoken of what a fantastic man he was and I’ve written things like “When I think about how I will never get to see his face again my heart feels like it is being suffocated with plastic wrap” or “If you could see the way Grandpa smiled at his Grandkids, your heart would explode with love.” But I haven’t typed it up and formed coherent sentences. Why? I don’t know. I’ve tried. I’ve come here time and time again and I just can’t get it out like I was able to with Grandma. Like I said before, my relationships with Grandma and Grandpa were different. They were both special in their own ways. I guess this one is just hard to articulate?

There are some things about Grandpa that I am going to miss the most and here are a few:

• How he used to always say “Boy, you sure are windy” whenever I would blabber on and on about any and everything when I was a kid. I’m so sad that Zoey will never get to experience this signature phrase of his.
• How he would click his tongue and pinch my sides to make me giggle.
• How much he loves his Grandkids (& Great Grandkid!). He could be in the grumpiest of moods but when he saw his Grandkids playing, you could always catch him smiling.
• Our fishing trips! We did a lot of fishing together, just Grandpa and I, when I was a kid and those are some of my best memories!
• Popcorn! Grandpa made the best air popcorn with REAL butter. He would then cut down a paper sack and make me a little “bowl” for my popcorn.
• There is obviously a lot more. I could go on and on.

You know, when you are a kid you don’t really think much about death. You may know about it, you may have ideas about where we go after we die, but you don’t really think too much about it. When you’re a kid, you don’t question your or anyone else’s mortality. In a kid’s eyes, your parents, your grandparents, your friends and the people you love will live forever.

And as naive as it sounds, I was completely devastated when my Grandma passed away because all of this time, I thought my Grandma and Grandpa would live forever. And even after Grandma died, I never really thought about Grandpa dying. I guess it’s just your mind’s way of coping with things. To just kind of put those negative icky-death thoughts on the back burner. Because if we lived fearing death every day, what kind of life would that be?? Not living at all, I’d imagine.

So, in conclusion, I hereby suggest that we start a Grandparents Immortality rally. Because I think Grandparents make life sweeter. They help create memories for children all around the world. They love like no other. So we should keep ‘em around, ya know? Who’s with me?

And just one last tidbit.. Here are a few things that I do in my life to help keep the memory of my Grandma & Grandpa alive:

• I toss a jug of water and tea bags out into the warm afternoon sun on a summer afternoon because my Grandma always had sun tea brewing!
• I use crocheted dish cloths to wash my dishes because my Grandma always had one draped over her sink.
• I use old vintage pyrex dishes to mix up recipes because my Grandma always had one out on her counter in the kitchen when she was cooking or baking.
• I make Gumdrop cookies from time to time because my Grandma always had some made for me whenever I came to visit because she knew how much I loved them!
• I sit on my back patio with my daughter in the metal chairs that used to reside in my Grandparent’s back yard. Listening to the wind blow in the trees, just like I used to do at my Grandparent’s house. Life can move so much faster in a big city, so it’s nice to take time to relax and slow down from time to time.

And this beautiful little girl that you see right here? She makes this mama the happiest and most proud mama ever on a daily basis. I love her like you can’t believe (unless you are a mama, then I’m sure you know what I’m talking about) and I don’t even know how I got along before she was in my life.

And this innocent looking pooch? She follows us around the house all day and likes to sneak Z kisses in when I turn my head. She sleeps in front of the crib when Z naps and loves to be near us at all times.

This guy? I think he might be slightly depressed. He is a little more lazy than he used to be pre-baby but I think he is sad that he is no longer the baby of the family. He sleeps all day and doesn’t come out of the room until 4 or 5 PM. He likes to sniff Z but really could care less about her. He smells bad but somehow we love him.

That’s my family. And I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Now, we are done paying bills and Z is in bed, so I am going to go crack open a cold one (Bud Light Lime = YECK! Don’t EVER buy this crap! I much prefer a Corona with a REAL lime in it.) and watch Margaret Cho’s new stand up special. She makes me laugh and that is exactly what I need!

• Grandpa’s funeral was beautiful. I finally got to grieve for him on Friday. Missing him a lot.
• Zoey had another screaming spell last night for a good 2-3 hours. It was rough. I’m taking her to the doctor today. We ended up giving her a suppository and she was able to go poop and feel better.
• We were out of town for an entire week and boy it feels good to be back home.
• It is emotionally exhausting having to clean out Grandma & Grandpa’s house. It’s like you’re throwing away or giving away so many memories. It’s hard not to take absolutely everything for the sole purpose of remembrance. It feels like closing a huge chapter of my life :(
• Going back there to pick up furniture in a couple of weeks.
• Gene and I are going to California to visit his parents the first week of September. I’m soo excited!

I’ll write more later. I wanna do a tribute to Grandpa. And I need to download pictures off of the camera. Just give me a week.. or two.. or a few months.

Bath time is quickly becoming a fun, fun time for us. Zoey is beginning to enjoy baths a lot more than she did before. She still loathes having her hair washed but we usually save that for last. She absolutely despises having her face washed and having water poured on her face. She’ll understand the importance of washing her face sometime when she hits about 15 or 16 years old.

Gene has given her the last couple of baths. I think bath time is a good time for Daddy and baby to bond. I took some pictures over the weekend when Gene gave her a bath and I got a half-grin out of her. She is becoming so much more fun now that she is smiling and you can really tell she sees us. She is following our movements and focusing on our faces and objects. Sometimes Astro will be standing near by and she will be looking up at him from her bouncy seat and when he walks around her eyes follow him.

This morning he was standing above her and dipped his head down and was sniffing her face. She was just staring wide eyed at him and when he was sniffing her really close she just started giving him these big, wide grins and smiles. It was sooo adorable! I wish I could have my camera ready and just take pictures of every single moment like that.

Well, I haven’t talked about it much because I haven’t even really had time to grieve or let it set in but my Grandpa passed away on Saturday afternoon. I’m rushing around this morning, packing and trying to get our things ready so when Gene gets home from work we can get out of here. We’re driving up to Miami, OK and the funeral is tomorrow morning. I wanna stay the whole week but Gene needs to be at work. I may come home Wednesday and then go back on Friday evening and stay the rest of the weekend. Not sure yet, though. Grandpa was in so much pain and I am sooo glad that he is no longer hurting. It’s not fair for him to be in pain like he was. It shouldn’t have to be that way. I’m hoping to write up tribute to Grandpa like I did to Grandma in August. My relationship with my Grandpa was very different than the one I had with Grandma. I’ll touch on that later, though.

I was going to mention a couple of things quickly without going into too much detail. My Mom and Dad are leaving for Florida tomorrow. It’s a work related trip for my Dad but they wont be back until Wednesday and I think it is mostly just for leisure. The work part is mostly an excuse. I’m really happy that my Mom is getting to go because this is the first time she’ll have been on a plane in about 16-18 years and also the first real “vacation” she has been on with my Dad. They never even had a honeymoon!

Also, my Grandpa is still in the hospital. Not sure what all is going on with that but he’s not doing really great. So if you pray, please pray for him and if all you do is think happy thoughts, please send some telepathically to him. Anything is appreciated at this point.

I really want to write up a post going into detail about our cloth diaper adventure. It has been so great and I just love them so much. The first day was difficult. There was a lot of “doubt” in the first day of it. But I knew I just needed to stick with it and it would get easier with time and I can’t believe how easy it’s been so far. Plus, I knew I had already invested quite a bit of cash into the whole thing and would be sorely disappointed if I didn’t stick with it. I’ll try to write one up tomorrow about it all. I know, my blog is SO interesting. Gag.

As far as Zoey goes, she is 7 weeks old as of Tuesday and doing so wonderful. Her tummy is finally settling well and she is doing GREAT on her new formula. She’s been on Earth’s Best Organic for over 2 weeks now and she no longer seems to have many tummy troubles. Today I was goo-gooing and gaa-gaaing and giggling and making some pretty ridiculous noises at her and she gave me the biggest and longest smile I’ve seen yet! It about killed me it was so adorable. I don’t think I’ve felt my heart swell that much since the day she was born. I love this kid to pieces. I can’t even believe that she is mine sometimes. It feels too good to be true!