nightmare

Every since Eric has had his surgery, when he wakes up from a nap or in the morning, he screams. I don't know if this is just a coincidence or if he's still a little traumatized from waking up from anesthesia. He has gotten better with the screaming and lately it seems like it's just happening a few hours after he falls asleep for the night and he normally just needs a little comfort and he goes right back to sleep... but not last night.
The baby fell asleep with his bottle so I put him right to bed at 8pm. I was exhausted so I went and laid down and at about 9 he woke up screaming but fell right back to sleep. I fell asleep at 9:30 which is early for me so I was expecting a really good night's sleep. Well he woke up again at 11:30pm. Eric went in to check on him and picked him up for a minute. I went into the room and took him and rocked with him for a little bit (Ok I'm starting not to remember exactly how the whole night happened but this is close enough!) and then I put him back down. He started screaming shortly after I put him down. I am all for letting him scream it out but I get worried because I think the woman who lives next door to us shares a wall with her bedroom and his bedroom so I don't want to keep her up all night. Eric went in and got him and just brought him into our bed. He was happy to do this and when he started to seem tired I brought him into his bed. At this point it was after midnight.
He seemed fine and Eric went to bed and I stayed awake waiting for the baby to fall asleep. After about 20 minutes of silence he started to scream. I waited for a little bit and then I went in there. At this point it was just before 1am. I picked him up and he was ready to play! Oh boy. So I brought him into the living room, trying to let everyone else around here get some sleep. He sat on the floor in the living room and told a lovely story until about 1:15am. Again I tried to put him to bed and he screamed. I picked him up and he still screamed. He looked exhausted but he would not fall asleep. I was desperate. I changed his diaper and gave him some water and then some tylenol because I thought maybe he was hurting somewhere. I then caved and gave him two ounces of formula and he still screamed afterwards. So I sat in the living room rocking with a screaming baby figuring that eventually he just has to crash. 3:00am came around and he was still screaming. Eric woke up and came out and took him from me and just put him to bed. I told him I was afraid something was really wrong with him and I was also afraid that he would continue screaming and keep the neighbor up all night. Eric decided that he was just playing games and the neighbor would have to deal with it for tonight. Thankfully, whether there was something wrong or not, he screamed himself to sleep after about 15 minutes. I didn't get to bed until 3:30am. Thankfully the baby didn't wake up until 9am.
The only thing I'm worried about is that this happens again tonight. If it does I will know that he is just trying to test my patience!

This weekend

We had a busy weekend. On Saturday we had a Christmas party at my Aunt Jo's house (my mom sent me a ton of pictures but at the moment I'm too lazy to download them so maybe another time!). It is always nice to see family since most of the people here I only see once a year. Out of the 18 grandchildren, 11 showed up. Out of the 15 great grand children, 11 showed up, including the little princess who no one has met yet and is she cute! It is fun to see all the kids together knowing that next year all the ones that were born this year will be running around together making it more of an adventure!
That night we got snow for the first time since October. We have such a nice view out of the windows of our apartment. Here's a pretty picture I took of the snow:

On Sunday we went to super walmart to see Santa. At first Eric sat with him fine because he was fascinated by his beard. I was able to take two quick pictures before he started screaming. The Walmart guy took pictures as well but he was so slow at taking the pictures that the baby started screaming and Daddy had to get in the picture with him. We ended up not picking up those pictures from Walmart and just sticking with the ones I took pre-screaming:

Sunday night we went out to dinner with my Gramma and Ted. It was so nice to spend time with them. I'm not so good at visiting people and normally my gramma sees him the most on the holidays so she has to share him with everyone else. This time she got to spend lots of time with him and he sat with her squirming away and talking and being a total goofball. He doesn't know yet how lucky he is to not only have grand parents but have great grandparents as well!

That crawling thing

Eric is almost 9 months old and is still not crawling yet. I know it will happen eventually and I'll miss the days when he didn't crawl but he seems like he has absolutely no interest in it. He has his own way of getting around. He rolls all the way to where he wants to go and then if that doesn't completely get him where he wants to be, he lies on his back and kicks his feet and scoots himself to where he wants to go.

The interesting thing is that he can stand holding on to things without my support. However, he can't get into a standing position without my help first because he has not figured out how to go from lying down to sitting up and then holding on to something and pulling himself up. He's got a lot of work to do!

The scoot

Surgery: The follow up

So Eric is recovering quite nicely from surgery. We took the bandage off and the first thing he did was put his thumb in his mouth! We have been trying to make sure he keeps his thumb out of his mouth for now but he thinks it's funny when he does it and gets caught. The first day with the bandage off the stitches "opened up" twice causing some bleeding but it stopped just as quickly as it started and it hasn't bled since. The wound seems to be healing ok. We'll see what the doctor says on Tuesday when we have our follow up appointment.

His hand before:


His hand after, like magic! (the put marker on his thumb to indicate the correct finger to operate on)

Surgery day

Ever since I scheduled the surgery to have the baby's extra thumb removed my stomach has been in knots. I was never nervous about the surgery itself but I was a wreck about him getting anesthesia. I do not do well with anesthesia so I was afraid that I had passed this one to the baby.
We were scheduled to come into the Hanneman hospital at 6:30 this morning. I had to wake everyone up in the morning and at first the baby just fell asleep in my arms when I picked him up. However, he woke up after a little bit and was in such a good mood. Oh the guilt we felt because he had no idea what he was in for!
We got to the hospital and the nurses were so nice. They brought us to a bed and explained to us what the morning was going to look like. There was also this cute quilt on the bed from an organization called Project Liunus. I guess they make quilts for babies in hospitals. It just made me feel like we were taken care of for some reason.
When they were ready to take him to the OR, only one of us could go in and see him fall asleep. Since Eric is a little uneasy in hospitals I quickly volunteered. The baby was so happy right up until they laid him down on the bed and there were a bunch of people over him with masks on (including me because they had me dressed up like I was about to do the operation!). He screamed but they put the mask over his face and he fell right to sleep. It was hard to see and I held in my tears until after he fell asleep so he wouldn't see me scared.
I met Eric outside the OR and we went to the waiting room. Eric was just as much of a wreck. He didn't want to sit down and must have asked me a hundred times what time it was and how much longer I thought it would take. All of the sudden I saw Dr. Dunn and he came out to us and we leaped out of our seats. He jokingly told us the baby did great but he might have to perscribe us some vallium! He told us that the surgery was very simple and everything went fine and that we could see the baby soon.
The time between when we talked to Dr. Dunn and when the nurse came and got us felt like an eternity. I just wanted to be there when he woke up! He woke up screaming but once he opened his eyes, I gave him his silkie and he stuck his left thumb right in his mouth and was content. I knew he was hungry but I didn't want to just immediately give him a 7 ounce bottle so I started by giving him his sippy cup with water. The way he was going after his sippy cup I knew a bottle was in order. He ended up sucking down an entire 7 ounce bottle without any problems. We were out of the hospital and on our way home by 9:15am.
When we got home we all laid down and the baby passed out on Daddy. I stayed awake because I have a project to do for class tonight and of course I had to catch up on my blogging!
Right now he doesn't seem like he's in much pain but he's really tired. He has a bandage on his hand that we have to try to keep on for 24 hours so we haven't seen the scar yet. He is having a hard time staying away from the bandage so hopefully it'll last the whole day and night.
So here are so me pictures I took with my cell phone. I wished that I had gotten one in the cute johnny that he wore but we didn't put him in it until like 2 minutes before he went to the OR and then we put him right back in his jammies after he woke up to keep him warm so no time for pictures.


Right when I went to take this picture he sat up but here he is waiting patiently with Daddy, not knowing what was in store for him.


The quilt on his lap is the one from Project Liunus. I was trying to get a last picture of his extra thumb before he got it taken off. You can kind of see it in the picture.

Here he is with his silkie before surgery just hanging out

Here he is taking a nap with Daddy after we got home.

Thanksgiving

The day before Thanksgiving my mom and I prepared all the food so it would be easier on Thanksgiving day for me to get everything ready. It turned out that my mom ended up not having to work on Thanksgiving so we made dinner together. In all the hustle and bustle of course I forgot my camera. That afternoon we had gone to Eric's Aunt Karen's house but I have no pictures of that :(. Thanks to my mom and sister I do have pictures from my parent's house! The meal turned out good and it was a lot of fun to have all the kids there. Next year it will be even more exciting when all the boys are running around talking up a storm! Eric tried mashed potatoes, bread, squash, and turnips and carrots. It was nice to be able to share the meal with him.

Ok pictures in no particular order:

yummy plate


The boys and their boys



My dad and Dylan were running around the table for some reason and Eric sat and watched and thought it was so exciting everytime they came around. My sister snapped these pictures during all the excitement!

The family. Notice how the baby's tongue is out. Those teeth make him constantly want to stick out his tongue for some reason

Pepe and Eric

Meme and Ryan and Pepe and Eric

Yummy spoon

Daddy and Eric

The Hamelins (Tyler, Laura, the Erics and me!)

Eric's Thanksgiving rocks outfit (notice the turkey is playing a guitar of course!)

He's pretty happy about thanksgiving I think :)

The cousins

Auntie Karen holding on tight to Eric

first haircut

Two blogs in one day folks, this doesn't happen often! We finally took Eric to get his haircut. I did not want to get rid of his little curls but two people in the last week commented on what a beautiful little girl I have. Seriously, people, before you comment on what sex a child is, if they are wearing all blue and their shirt says "little slugger", just because there hair is long does not negate the fact that they are in a boys outfit! Oh man. We ended up taking him to Snipits for his first cut. I was going to have Jess cut his hair but I know Snipits is fun and it's closer so Jess will get the next cut! It wasn't too expensive and the salon was full of bright colors. They put on a tv in front of him which surprisingly he didn't pay much attention to. Daddy entertained him by giving him puzzle pieces that he mostly ate but also tried to put in the puzzle. He didn't fuss at all until she pulled out the clippers. He screamed at that part but he survived! At the end he got to put a card in a little slot and get a prize. He got a not so age appropriate toy so we will save it for when he's like 5 haha. He also got a certificate with a lock of his hair. So cute! They even put him in a regular chair and strapped him in. He's getting to be such a big boy!

Turn this way

and that way

Before it all got chopped off

Uh oh here come the clippers

Daddy trying to calm him down by showing him his haircut in the mirror

Hi I'm a big boy now with a big boy haircut!