And now you know...

....why I've nicknamed him Sweet Hubby for the blog.

I had a focus for this post, but lost track somewhere and so it's all just babble.

I promise that I won't be blogging "all-baby, all-the-time" forever. It's just the biggest thing going on right now in our lives, so it's where most of our focus is. I hope you are patient with me and all my talk of all things Evie.

Anyway, we're in the process of putting all the finishing touches in Evie's room. It should be mostly done by tomorrow morning. I decided this afternoon, that the next thing to do should be to organize all her clothes. Last week (or two weeks ago...or two years ago...I've lost track), when I cleaned out that room to begin with, I just took all the clothes she had and shoved them in her dresser to get them out of the way while we started work on her room. So yesterday (two days ago...?) I put on the first load of Evie clothes to wash. That entire load was nothing but hand me downs. Today, however, if I wanted to keep washing her clothes, I had to start taking tags off. I panicked a bit at the thought of "Yipes, what if we end up bringing home our little Grant, instead of our little Evie?!? What in the world will I do with all these clothes that are brand new, but now have no tags?" Taking off tags makes the whole thing seem more real and like I'm more committed to the idea of having a girl. Nevermind the fact that we just painted the room pink and I've made more bows than she'll have hairs on her head when she's born.

Speaking of bows, I must take some more pictures of what I've been working on. I've finally gotten the hang of one style of bow that I was having trouble with, and they are turning out oh-so-cute. I'm making bows for outfits that she doesn't even have yet, but that I plan on her having. Like a black and hot pink bow for a black and pink Supergirl dress I want to make for her. And today I made two bows with the intention of picking one for her to wear when she gets baptised (unless of course we end up with something that she must have a bonnet for). Those two are particularly precious. Way back when, before I started making bows, I bought a bunch of little tiny baby bows (No hair needed!) off of ebay for her to wear in her first few weeks, especially for pictures in the hospital and for her coming home outfit. Now that I've been dealing with these bigger bows, those little tiny ones just seem incomplete or not enough. But I'm going to try to control myself in the beginning and only use the big bows for when I'm playing dress-up with her, and use the little tiny ones for when we go out or take pictures. We'll see how long that lasts.

And for those of you that care, I'm 34 weeks now and as of today we are 4 weeks from the scheduled Baby Day. I'm actually pretty impressed with how much we've gotten done in a short amount of time. I've been much calmer about what needs to be done this time around. Sweet Hubby, on the other hand? Well, he's the one that insisted on getting her room started and finished and this week he re-lanscaped our yard, and next week he plans on painting the exterior of our house. Meanwhile, I have vague ideas of what I would like to have done before Evie gets here (mainly just things I don't want to have to do AFTER she gets here), but I haven't done anything about them or even really thought through planning to get them done. For some reason, I have it in my head that I need a steam mop before I can really get anything done. As if the dirty floors in my house were my only housekeeping problem.

And for a closing thought, I know I must be getting close to baby day because I'm getting to the point in my pregnancy when I'm easily annoyed. The ones in my life that I love most are wearing on my nerves....and I know logically that it's not their fault and they're doing things that they ALWAYS do, but hormonally I want to yell at them for breathing too loudly, or chewing too loudly, or for sitting funny on the couch, or for asking too many questions, etc, etc. Today, I had to keep my tone in check when I told Stephen to quit making me think. The words were out of my mouth before I realized how ridiculous they were. And I said them just a mere few hours after telling him that he can always ask me anything. *sigh* I hope that I can not be such an ogre after the baby's born.

Normal

Grab your party hats, folks, 'cause you're in for a pity party.

Usually when I talk about things getting back to normal, I talk about it in a good way because I look forward to normal and "calm" (calm is a relative term). But now, I sit here bitter about normal.

Sweet Hubby's back at work tonight. He slept/rested most of the afternoon and left about an hour ago. He had been on leave from work for almost 7 weeks and I have gotten so used to having him around. The first few weeks, it was great having him home. We really are best friends and it was great to be a team (as much as he could be a part of a team in his condition) and to "hang out" all day. The second couple of weeks, I started to feel a little restless and claustrophobic because I hadn't really had 2 seconds truly alone in weeks. I started to look forward to getting back to normal when he went back to work. And then the last few weeks, having him home became our new normal. We've gotten to spend lots of time together and we've gotten a lot done. Doing school was 10 times easier because I had a built-in playmate to keep Marc-Adam (or either of the other boys) busy while the older boys and I were able to really concentrate on our work. Every night, after we put the kids down and checked our e-mail, we'd plop down on the couch and watch a movie or something off DVR, eat a bowl of cereal (or a milkshake) and just be.

So now, I'm feeling a bit lonely and sorry for myself. I still have a few things to watch on DVR that I haven't watched yet because I knew he didn't have any interest in it, but I don't want to sit by myself. And I'm really really thirsty and craving some apple juice...there were more than a few times that I would be craving something after the kids went to bed and he would run up to the store to get it for me. Obviously, I can't just run up to the store now, so I have to drink the funky water (uh, no.) or more milk (I think I've drank most of a gallon of milk today).

This week's going to be longer than normal, too, because he gets home Friday morning to be off for 4 days, but then Friday afternoon he's going camping with his dad and won't be home till Sunday afternoon. Boo. I really wanted to whine about those plans, but I bit my tongue because he needs that getaway.

Oh, well. 7.5 more weeks till Evie gets here and we'll get to have him home for a whole 'nother 6 weeks.

On the upside, I might actually be blogging more now. No offense, but it was much more fun to spend my free time hanging out with him than blogging. :)

I forgot to give this post a title the first time I published it...

...that's a sure sign that it's a random post.

I'm sorry I haven't been around much lately. Things have been kind of crazy, and my brain is so full and overwhelmed that I feel like I wouldn't even be able to put together a coherent post. So we'll stick with bullet points today and hope that I can come up with some better posting in the next few days.

• Stephen had some weird symptoms earlier this week, so I took him to the doctor. Turns out he had strep. Weird. Even the doctor was confused. He said he'd never seen strep present that way. But he went ahead and put him on antibiotics and Stephen's all better now.
  

• I've been feeling a little under the weather. Hoping I'm not coming down with strep, too.

• Sweet Hubby's still dealing with quite a bit of pain. He's on pain meds that seem to help a little, but not completely. Hopefully he'll be able to function better after we get these other tests done.
  

• The boys are finally getting over a cough that kept us up at night for several nights. And then once they got over it and we had the possibility of a good night's sleep, a thunderstorm blew in that kept the kids and I up for a while. We finally started getting some better rest a couple nights ago.

• I've finally found us some new curriculum that I'm excited about. I'm in the planning stages this week, and we hope to start on Monday. We're also going to try our hand at lapbooking. Even Sweet Hubby is excited about that. I'll post our progress and results next week.

• Sciatica sucks. That's all I have to say about that.

• My in-laws are opening a little home decor shop for the first time tomorrow. I'm super-excited for them and we've been there helping out quite a bit this week. It's been great because my mother-in-law asked me to make some pillows for the shop, so I've been able to sew again, which really makes me happy. I always forget how much I love to sew until I'm able to do it again. I really can't get any sewing done on a regular basis, but I've had great fun over the last couple of days getting some pillows together for her.

• Have a great weekend, everyone!
  

Is no news actually good news?

So, after 4 visits to our family doctor, 3 visits to 2 different neurologists, 4 MRIs and 1 CT scan, 2 trips for blood tests we still don't really know what's wrong with Sweet Hubby. His last couple of MRIs did show some bulging disks in his middle and lower back, which might explain the numbness/pain in his legs and feet (and it definitely explains his back pain), but it doesn't explain what's going on in his neck and arms/hands--and what's going on in his arms/hands are the same things that's going on with his legs/feet so it makes me wonder if the bulging disks have anything to do with anything. The bulging disks are too far down to be affecting his arms and hands. We were so frustrated when we left the doctor this morning because we still don't have a solid answer and now he's got to have more (and more invasive) testing. In 2 weeks, he's having an EMG done on all 4 limbs so they can try to pinpoint which nerves are causing the problem and then hopefully we can find the source. In the meantime, he's on an leave of absence from work. Thank goodness his company has a 90 paid leave of absence for management, otherwise we'd be in a world of trouble. They also have an "Associate in Need" program to help out when things like this happen, but unless something really awful or expensive happens, I don't think we'll need it.

On the bright side, we've spent so much on all this that we've almost hit the maximum out of pocket for our insurance. Once I pay for my part on the hospital, Evie will be free. And my hospital stay and all that will only cost us $800. And any other medical costs we have this year will be covered 100% by our insurance.

So that's where we're at. I hadn't updated in a while. We could sure use your prayers if you can squeeze us in.

Vindicated

Sweet Hubby saw the new neurologist today and we loved her. She was SO much better than the last guy. She's only a few years older than us, which was comforting and scary all at the same time. But she was fantastic. Believe it or not, we actually spent more time with her than we did waiting on her. We got there early, they got us back early, and we were out of there only 16 minutes past our appt time.

Anyway, she ordered some more blood work and wants to get some MRIs on his neck and spine. After she said that, it was like Sweet Hubby and I both looked at each other and said, "Duh." We wondered why we (or the 2 other doctors we've seen) hadn't thought of that. We'll excuse our family practice doctor from not thinking of it, but seriously, the other neurologist wanted to drug SH up and put him in wrist splints and a neck brace. But I'm not bitter.

She did put him on some new meds, so we'll try it to see if it helps with his symptoms. We're due back to see our family practice doctor on Tuesday and then we'll see the neurologist again in 2 weeks. Hopefully by then, we'll have some real answers.

Five and a half hours and $175 later....

This morning, about an hour after Sweet Hubby went to sleep (he works overnights, not sure if I've mentioned that on my blog before), his doctor called and said that the neurologist they normally refer people to can't get us in for 2-3 weeks, but they have another neurologist that could get us in today if went right then. So I woke SH up, and we all ran around trying to get dressed and out of the house. My MIL came and picked up the kids and we left. The office is about 45 minutes away, and we got there at about 11:30am.

At a little before 2pm, we finally saw the doctor. He was, um, curt to put it lightly. He told SH that he wanted to get an EEG right then, so they ushered us into another room where they start hooking him up. At that point we hadn't eaten lunch and SH had had one hour of sleep since 8:30pm last night. And the nurse informs him that he must lay perfectly still with his eyes closed for AN HOUR WITHOUT falling asleep. Okay. This is a man who will fall asleep if he sits still for 5 minutes an hour after waking up. He was able to pull it off, I think, but only because he was starving.

The test was over at 3pm and a little after 4 we finally saw the doctor again. We had written all of the symptoms and such down when we got there, plus we had given them copies of the results of the tests SH has had so far, but the doctor acted like he hadn't even looked at any of it. He asked us several times when SH was having an MRI, like he couldn't remember it from one sentence to the next. He then tells us he doesn't know what's wrong, but then writes out a list of 3 prescriptions he wants SH to take. (As a side note, we are very skeptical of prescription drugs to begin with.) He doesn't explain what any of them are for and I'm just curious what exactly it is that he's treating since he told us he doesn't know what's wrong (he never mentioned the possibility of neuritis). He also told SH to start wearing wrist splints to help with numbness in his hands because he's probably got pinched nerves in his wrists. Which doesn't at all explain what's going on with the numbness in his feet. The doctor also had SH write out "a story" of how all this has happened and when. When SH gave it to him, the doctor started scratching stuff out. That was frustrating...I want a doctor who will take in to account EVERYTHING we say. Oh, and he never did mention anything about the EEG results.

When we finally were done with him, we went to check out where the nurse gives us the prescriptions for the drugs, the wrist splints, and a cervical collar. Um, isn't that one of those neck brace thingies?? The doctor NEVER mentioned anything about that, let alone the fact that he never discussed any of the prescription drugs with us. We have no idea what the purpose of the neck collar was.

So, after five and a half hours and $175, all we got was frustrated and a big fat headache. I hated that doctor. He was very hard to understand, which I can deal with as long as I feel like the doctor is doing his job and is actually listening. This guy was worse than another doctor that I hated...he was the one that we saw when Zachary was baby. He asked if Zachary had a list of issues and when I answered no to all of them, he said, "So. That's just how he looks?" Grrrr.

We probably should have spoken up more. But neither one of us liked him, and he never really gave us chance. I think we were both waiting for him to actually start listening and asking real questions.

Thanks for the vent. We're calling Sweet Hubby's doctor as soon as they are open to tell them and to hopefully get another neurologist. We have no intention of going back to that guy. And we didn't any of the meds he described OR the neck collar or wrist splints. I didn't trust a word out of his mouth.

Here's the deal

Last week (or earlier this week?) I asked you to pray for my Sweet Hubby because he's not been feeling well and we weren't sure why. His blood work came back perfectly normal, which left only the CT results to give us any clues as to what was wrong. And of course, my brain went into "worse case scenario" mode. Add to that that the nurses would not discuss the results of the CT with us over the phone and I was calm on the outside but freaking.out on the inside (but don't tell him that, I was the picture of calm and level-headed with him). We had an appt with his doctor for this coming Tuesday, but Sweet Hubby started having bad pain and more numbness and he called and got in to see the doctor this afternoon. Here's what he told us:

The CT showed that it looks like Sweet Hubby has inflammation of some nerve cells in his brain. It's called neuritis (I'd link it, but I can't find a reliable link to the exact issue he has, apparently there are many types of neuritis...which makes sense because there are many types of nerves). Anyway, this sounds a bit scary, but it's actually the best news we could've gotten. I was afraid that either they would find NOTHING wrong, which meant that Sweet Hubby would be suffering with no answers, or that they would find something horribly wrong and our lives would be drastically changed. For some reason, my mind couldn't find any other scenario somewhere in the middle. But this preliminary diagnosis is good. This will go away on its own with some time (how much, we don't know yet). But just to be sure, the doctor wants Sweet Hubby to have an MRI, which is scheduled for Monday, and then he'll be seeing a neurologist some time next week.

So, thanks for praying if you did and I'll keep you updated.

Everyone else is doing it

It seems like everyone's doing a bullet point post, so why shouldn't I? I do need to fit in to the bloggy world, right? ;)

• Potty training's going well with M-A. He's got the tee-teeing down pat. #2's not great, but he's had a few successes. He is, however, in underwears full-time during the day. He's still in diapers at night and nap, but that's because I'm not brave enough to do undies at night. He wakes up dry 95% of the time, but he's still in a crib, so we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
• Like I said, Marc-Adam's still in his crib (which I'm hoping I can make last for a few more months at least), but we moved his crib into the boys' room this evening. We tried this once before, but put him in the toddler bed. That went over like a lead balloon, so this is round 2. So far, they're all in there being quiet, and I bet at least 2 of them are already asleep. I have 3 kids in one room. LOL! Ah, the joys of a large family in a small house.
• So, you're probably wondering what's up with what used to be Marc-Adam's room. Well, obviously, it will be Evie's room. I wasn't opposed to having her share with one of her brothers for a little while (hopefully we'll be in a bigger house by the time it's important for her to have her own space), but if we can make this arrangement work, I think it's the best scenario for now. I'm flexible, though, and will mix things up again if we have to.
  
• Speaking of Evie's room, the bedding's here!. It came in and I picked it up from my mom today. Y'all, it's even better in person. It's so well-made, so plush and soft and pretty and girly and....it's just perfect. Mom and I found a lamp that we fell in love with at Target today, and if the colors match the lamp shade, we're so getting it. It's perfect.
• We've decided to go with pink for Evie's room, but I'm worried about that. I'm afraid of it being "too pink" or Pepto Bismol pink, or just nauseating pink. But we've got a limited number of shades to work with out of her bedding. Anybody have any experience painting a room pink? Care to share?
• I feel like this pregnancy has taken FOR.EV.ER. And I still have at least 16 weeks to go. This is by far the slowest pregnancy I've ever had.
  
• I've decided to ditch part of our homeschool curriculum. I've been agonizing over this for days now, but I think I've finally come to the conclusion. It's really a great curriculum, it's just not working for us right now, so we're going to shelve it. I definitely plan on pulling it out again when the kids get a little older, though. I think they'll like it better in a few years.
• So, until I figure out what else we're going to do, I guess we'll just be sticking with the 3 R's: reading, writing, and arithmetic. And lots and lots of play.
  
• Pray for Sweet Hubby if you're the praying sort. He's not been feeling well lately and went to the doctor on Wednesday. They drew a bunch of blood and so far all those tests have come back normal. He had a CT scan today, but we don't have the results of that yet. On the one hand, I'm glad the tests have come back normal so far, but on the other hand, he still feels awful and we have no idea why (and therefor no way to make him better). I would have rathered something come back abnormal in his blood tests than the CT scan. If the CT scan comes back abnormal, then that means there something going on in his head, and well, I don't have to tell you that that scenario's a bit scary. So pray that he either starts feeling better, or that we found out why he feels so crummy to begin with.
• That's all.
  

Happy Birthday My Dear

Tomorrow, my Sweet Hubby has a birthday. I keep teasing him that he's "30 minus 1". It's much more fun to say than '29'. I also tease him about how much older he is than me but I also poke fun at him by asking him at what point he plans on actually growing up. He's a good sport about it all.

My hubby, he's a good one. There are many many things that make him great, and most of them are little things that I might take for granted too often. Here are a few.

~I never ever have to ask him to take the trash out. It's always done before it gets too full or starts to smell. And if I've thrown something away that I know will start to smell soon, all I have to say is "I put something smelly in the trash earlier" and before I know it, there's a new fresh bag in the can.

~He's often cleaner than I am. He always hangs up his towel and rarely leaves dirty clothes on the floor. He also picks up his dishes. I'm not always good about any of those things.

~He works hard. He works 13-14 hour days and when he's home, he's always busy doing something...whether it be playing with/tending to the boys, helping with the dishes in the kitchen, mowing the lawn or crawling in the attic to find the source of the noises that have been keeping me up at night. Even when he's "relaxing", he's still doing something with his hobbies. He is the opposite of lazy.

~He worries about me. It's not that I want him to worry or feel uneasy about me, but I like that he worries. If I've been sick or not feeling well, he calls me often to check on me, and he immediately starts telling his bosses/colleagues that if I need him, he'll have to leave and he starts planning for that situation.

~He's just nice. He's a nice guy and anyone that spends any time with him knows that and sees it right away. He's got great manners and is always polite. He's always respectful toward anyone he meets. It's one of the things that I noticed about him right away and I knew then that he was a great guy. And it has not changed one bit.

~We have great conversation. I'm rarely bored with him. Even if it's been weeks since we've been able to really talk or have some alone time, we just pick right up where we left off and never feel like we have nothing to talk about.

~He makes me laugh--that's not always been the case. He didn't have that great of a sense of humor when we first met, but he's really loosened up over the last few years, and now he constantly catches me off guard with one-liners or witty responses. I still don't expect that from him. Which makes it even funnier.

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my Sweet Hubby! Before we got married, I'd always heard people talk about how they were more in love after 10 or 20 or 30 years of marriage than they were when they first got married. I never really understood how that could happen, but I see it now.



Hubby, I love you for who you are and a little more every day. I hope you have a fantastic birthday and that you accomplish everything you've set out to do this year. You are one in a million and I'm blessed that we get to go through this life together.

*On a side note: I realized yesterday that I've already spent a third of my life loving my Sweet Hubby. So cool.