Trying to Catch a Breath

Hello all,

Its been so long since I've been able to post.  Forgive me for being so lax in updating.  I feel like since the start of 2014, life has been an extreme roller coaster.  Briefly, this is a run down of our year thus far:

January 6, 2014. 

Our sweet boy spent 2 nights in the hospital in January.  He won all the hearts of all his nurses with his sweet smile!

In the middle of a crazy blizzard, we ended up having to take Max to the emergency room because of an infection (unrelated to his clubfoot).  Jay's parents were snowed in at their house, so we had to load all 3 kids up in the van and attempt to make it to the hospital.  It was crazy...no traffic allowed on the roads except for emergencies, and it took forever, but we made it to the ER.  Max had to stay for about 48 hours in the children's wing at Lutheran Hospital, a horrible and exhausting stay.  Jay still had to work while we were there, so thankfully he was able to get to his parents house and take Oliver and Lucy to have them stay with their Nana and Poppa.  Max had a rough stay and it was, to be honest, very traumatizing for this mama.  He is doing fine now, has had his final follow-up appointments with specialists, and we will hopefully never revisit those issues.

March 13, 2014. 

Our beloved Poppa.  We can't wait to see you again in heaven.

Jay's dad, our beloved Poppa, unexpectedly passed away.  I have never felt such a loss, such a deep grief, as losing my father-in-law.  I could go on and on and probably should write out those feelings someday as a way to heal, but this isn't the time or place.  What was supposed to be a routine procedure turned into something much worse, and before we knew it, he was gone.  My heart still aches every day for the man who took me into his family and loved me like his own.  I long to hear his voice and feel his hugs.  Life is very much felt in a "before Poppa died" and "after Poppa died" time frame.  I couldn't bring myself to even think of blogging for the longest time after he passed because nothing felt right, nothing felt the same.  And I knew how much he loved reading my posts.  Its hard to even think of posting this one knowing he will never read it.

April 7, 2014.

Max right before his tongue and lip tie revision.  Dr. Notestine was amazing!

 We drove 3 hours to take Max to get his lip and tongue tie revised.  After dealing with some breastfeeding struggles with Lucy, I discovered she had a lip and tongue tie.  Shortly after Max was born I realized he had the same, and knew we should get it corrected.  He went through so much after he was born with his clubfoot correction that I couldn't bring myself to do anything else to the sweet baby.  So we waited.  I had actually called in February and scheduled the appointment for March 13 - and then had to cancel it because Jay's dad died that day.  So we rescheduled for April and had it done.  It was quick, and the changes in his nursing habits were immediate and so worth the trouble.  But it was still hard to see him go through the procedure.  The days that followed were also very hard because we had to do stretches to keep the skin from reattaching.  He would scream and scream and it just broke my heart.  I'm very thankful, however, that we did it and that we made the long drive to go to someone who is very experienced and very good.  If we have another baby someday, I wouldn't hesitate to go back to Dr. Notestine if we need another revision.



May 2014.  Nothing seems as awful after the death of one of your closest family members.  However, things still are hard.  There's just no denying that.  One week early in May Max was running a low grade fever and just not feeling well.  I could tell he had teeth very close to coming in, so I held off on going to the doctor. One evening I had a mom's night out at Oliver's preschool, and when I got home, Max had fluid running out of his ear.  His ear drum had ruptured. :(  I felt so so awful.  I took him to the ER, had a wonderful nurse, and was back home quickly with medications to help him.  It seemed like things were getting better, until about 3 days later, he started having an allergic reaction to the amoxicillan.  He broke out in a terrible case of hives and it was absolutely awful to see.  It scared me to death to see my sweet baby so covered in horrible bumps and splotches.  My sweet boy has been through so much.  His feet swelled so much that his braces left bruises on his feet.

Max's reaction to his antibiotic was so awful to see. Thankfully it didn't seem to bother him at all!

May was also the month that Oliver, our oldest, graduated from preschool.  That was an emotional time for me as a mom.  Not only because our oldest was finishing preschool, but because I knew we would soon be moving and so many changes were happening and had already happened to us recently.  I'm so proud of Oliver and all he has accomplished.

Oliver's graduation from preschool.  The interaction between Oliver and Max is so sweet!

June 2014.  We became homeowners!  It was something we had dreamed about for years and it finally came true.  We were fortunate enough to build a house and although the last few weeks had some bumps in the road for the most part it was a smooth process.  It was hard in some ways to leave the small house that we had rented for almost 4 years.  We had pretty much built our family there.  Oliver was not quite 2 when we moved in, and Lucy and Max were born while we lived there.  We absolutely love this new house and feel blessed to call it our own.

In the final phases of building.  We love it here!

July 2014.

This month has been busy so far getting settled into the house- which is a much harder task than I ever imagined with 3 little ones around!  I had expected to be completely unpacked and things in place by now - we've lived here about 2.5 weeks - but its not there yet.  Slowly, but surely, it'll happen.  We took a couple of days and went to Holiday World as a family along with Jay's mom aka Nana.  Its been a whirlwind of a month and tomorrow (July 14) is our 7 year wedding anniversary.  Its hard to believe all that has happened in 7 years and its exciting to think of all that lays ahead for us.

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So as you can see, 2014 has been a crazy year for us.  So much good, and such deep heartache, all within just a few months.  We have more coming up very soon that will be big for our family as well, that I will be sharing later this week.   And of course, I still want to blog more about Max's treatment and care.  He is doing well, and has an appointment coming up this week with his orthopedic doctor for a routine check-up.  Stay tuned, and God Bless!