catching up

haven't been doing much of anything lately. behind on project life by 2-3 weeks. thankfully that is easy to catch up on and i hope to do that today or tomorrow. felt some what creative but not much. i do so much of it at work that when i get home i'm not in the mood to make cards or scrap. but i did make a couple of cards with some new stamps i got. my mother-in-law got me this new little bicycle stamp, love it!!!

 

 

here are a few cakes that i have made at work.

  i'm getting better at base icing. i hate when there is no border to cover up the sides! :)

i love this little bundt cakes. so many cute decorations for them. though they don't sell well and i can't figure out why. they are really neat and cheap!

i have a lot to say but my fingers are working fast enough nor is my brain. i started a blog on agoraphobia. it's blank so far as i just started it yesterday. i hope to write all i can about my experience and maybe it will be theraputic???? not sure yet if i will share it with others as it is a touchy, shameful subject. i really do want to write a book but man...i don't have time to write a book. unless they paid me in advance so i could take off work.....

we got new next door neighbors and they have a son that is 4 months younger than liam. we went over and played with thim friday night. they had a blast. mom's name is amber. she says that draven hasn't had anyone to play with as far as neighbors, liam hasn't either at least one that is the same age. they both love trucks and balls. they bought the house so now i really want to stay here and not move. which means that i really want to repaint and redo the house. amber and i seem to have some things in common. just want we all needed! makes me happy!

feeling blessed

today is the first sunday in weeks that i have felt good. i was able to get up and make a big breakfast. that is one thing i love to do on sunday's, make a big breakfast or pancakes. dude loves pancakes. there for a while it was pancakes every weekend. i think we all got burnt out. dude loves biscuits so biscuits are always a must.

i think i found out why i am getting over this sinus stuff as fast as i usually do. at work i use an air brush to color cakes. there is color in the air. you wipe down the counter and it is usually blue or a brown, sometimes green. i breathe that stuff in. i think it is hindering my recovery. that stuff sticks to my chest and won't let the mucus go. so i started to wear a mask. i do feel a difference. when i blow my nose or if i have mucus come up it is that color that is on the counter that i wipe down. that can't be good for you? lol so a mask it is. even if i feel like a total dork and think that people are wondering if i have some disease...i always worry about the stupidest stuff. i finally told myself  "who cares. it is for my health."

last weekend we took liam to ride some horses during our town's annual, "Little Balkans Day." It happens every Labor Day. I thought he would freak out and want eric to walk next to him. Ohhhh, no. he loved it. he didn't want off. i loved watching his face light up. it's what i live for! thankfully the rain stopped for a few so he could ride.

now to find someone that has a horse so he can spend more than 3 minutes on a horse.....

Thoughts

I've been asking myself a lot lately if I'm raising Liam right. Growing up i didnt have many people around my age. My brothers are much older than me. When we'd go to my grandparents very rarely would any cousins be there. I was never around any kids that were under 5, ever. I had friends that had kids but due to me working evenings i rarely saw them. So I'm taking all i know from my "motherly instincts."

I've been worrying too much about what others think. Should he being doing this or that? I really have no idea what I'm doing. I worry about what people think and say about me. Like if I'm doing things wrong. I love my son with all of my heart and soul. I'd do anything for him.

I so want to move out of our house. There is no yard for him to play. I saw this trailer for sale on the way to work with a big fenced in yard. I'd love to get it for him. So he can play and run without fear of cars. But i doubt we can. There's always something stopping something.

I hope I'm doing good. I think i am. He doesnt do things for us like he does for others, especially his sitter, but from what i hear that's common.  He's healthy. He's happy. He's clothed. We have the main things down. Now if i could just relax and know I'm doing ok.

a year ago

it was a year ago today, labor day, that changed our world. i wanted to write about this so many times but i couldn't. i couldn't see the pictures and remember how we could have lost him. we were close. but God had other plans and saved him. i mean it was a miracle that saved him and that miracle was God.

liam had been sick. it started that tuesday before. he started running a fever. we stayed home on wednesday and that night we ended up in the er. we waited for two hours. he had hardly any sleep due to the fever. he finally fell asleep while we waited in the er. we left because they never saw us. "too busy" to come in and check to see if the tylenol he threw up had actually worked or not. he threw up maybe 5 minutes later. "oh i am sure it went down." we were so mad. how can you ignore a baby with a fever. our er only had one dr. if there are so many people then they should call in a 2nd dr.

so we went home and continued to deal with vomiting, diarrhea and fevers. work was hounding us because we had been picked for the remodel crew but we had to call in. when he is sick we are both home. that's just how it is with us, ok? friday we went to pay a bill and he vomited in the car. i had had enough and was so scared and stressed by this. we went right to the er. when they triaged him his temp was 105. i just about screamed. "dont' worry mom, it is ok" the triage nurse said. so we get back and wait. they put in an iv to give him fluids. at this time he still hasn't peed. we are pretty sure he hasn't because it was hard to tell due to the diarrhea.

here we are in the er. asleep on daddy. i think the fluids were helping him. he only let me hold him once while he was in the hospital, wait twice. he always wanted daddy or grandpa. they said they would give him a bag of fluids and then send him home. i told the nurse i wasn't comfortable with going home. she agreed since he hasn't peed. they admitted him. it was friday before labor day.

the nurses on the ped floor were amazing. i could not ask for better nurses and aides. the hospital didn't have something that the dr ordered. so one nurse went and got it at walmart. it was something for diarrhea if i remember right. they were all over him. grateful for them.

to get his fevers down they put this cover over him that had veins in it. it was hooked up to a water tank, the only way i can describe it. the tank would cool the water, the water would filter through the "blanket." this did help the fevers to go down but soon they would come back up. more vomited. more diarrhea.

by sunday he is feeling better. he will go for wagon rides. he'd sit at the computer and play. he was even walking around. iv pole barely caught up with him. :) his color looked better. all this time all test were coming back negative. white cell count was still normal. it was all a mystery. the dr thought it was a virus. and we thought he was on the mend as we watched him play and laugh. then monday came.

he was fussy again.  i thought maybe he was tired of being in that room. it had been 2.5 days. he hadn't been outside. he loves being outside. we asked the dr if he could go outside. no but he could go down to the cafeteria. he hadn't been eating or drinking either at this point. we all thought if he went there and had something besides what they brought he would eat. nope. didn't work. that evening he threw up this naste green bile. thankfully his dr was on call then. she hadn't been all weekend. i guess for the holiday. it was ok because we had a dr that had been around for years and we figured he was good since we had heard so much about him. she has come in not too long after he threw up. we showed her the towel and she ordered a stomach xray. she said she wanted to read them. she came back and told us there was so much gas that it was hard to read but looked like a blockage in the bowel. he needed to be flown to a better hospital, well one that took kids. well...yeah a better hospital.

i held him and for the first time in my life prayed out loud. i felt a peace. we finally knew something. we waited and waited for answers. now we knew something. i knew it would be ok. we all were in hall and it hit me as the eagle med crew comes around the corner with their stretcher that he was leaving. there is nothing like seeing your son take off in a medical helicopter.

this was around 8 in the evening when they took him. i have so much i want to write about how it effected me and my agoraphobia but i can't right now. i can't make people understand how i felt so why even write about it. no one would understand unless they have it. maybe one day i will write about it.

we found out the next morning after an ultrasound that it was him appendix. they had ruptured, we are assuming when he got to wichita. thank god because had they ruptured here.....appendix are easy to fix i thought. i felt relief. surgery did go good.

 

he looks so sad and in pain. his with grandpa here. my baby all cut open. a central line. it breaks me.

 

 

he's drinking that pedialite like it's going out of style! drink away buddy!

 

 a week later he comes home. two days later he has another fever. CT scan confirms what the dr's told us to watch for, an abcess. so back to wichita he goes, this time in an ambulance. he could have went by car but with a fever i didn't want to chance it. i felt he was more safe going that way then in a car. at night it would be harder to find a hospital from here to there. his in the hospital for another week. they did a ct scan before he went home to make sure there wasn't another abcess. three dr's looked at the film and all felt it was safe for him to go home.

we were all so shocked, especially his dr's, that it was his appendix. he was 20 months old when they burst. who knew that could happen to a baby? dr's at wesley medical center said it really isn't uncommon to see this. that when they do it is usually a few at a time then nothing. his surgeon put in the report "no 18 month old should have his appendix burst. ever." he was 20 months but still. no it shouldn't happen.

i thank god for my miracle. it took me 19 years to have him. i tried and lost many times to get pregnant. 3 miscarriages before him. he is our miracle. and i knew god would take care of him through all of this. even though i felt peace i still felt pain, worry...it's normal to feel that. today the scare is still there but it gets lighter and lighter. he is his normal self. i worried for months if an abcess would come back. he gets a cold and runs a low grade fever and i freak. heck, i still freak lol. he's my baby. he's my joy. my life. even if we are going through some bad fits he still is my miracle.

i wish i could write how i felt through all of this but i still can't, especially the agoraphobia part. people won't get it. they won't understand. they just see what they want to see so why try? i gave up on trying to explain. you can't explain to anyone that has never had a panic attack or avoided places due to a panic attack. i'm thinking of starting a blog just for agoraphobia. like i have the time lol. maybe one day.

ugh. at a loss

first my sinuses. they are doing better. i can breath a lot better. it's been 3 weeks of this stuff and i think it is finally breaking up and going away. i hate not feeling well, don't we all?! but i made it though everything, including work. what i don't think i can make it through is liam's fits.

he really is a good kid. he is getting better at his manners. he's doing a lot better in so many areas, then all the suddens these massive fits come out. if we are leaving somewhere and he doesn't want to leave, he will fight getting into his car seat. he will scream. kick. cry. say "daddy, daddy, daddy" over and over again. it is really getting to us. more me than eric. i am not a patient person. i guess i expect him to just stop all of the sudden and be quit. one thing i read somewhere is that we expect them to understand us at our level. i need to remember that is just a toddler and that he is learning. i need to stop before i explode. i don't want him thinking he can't be around me because i will get mad. yes...i explode to easily it seems. i am better than i used to be though. actually, i'm pretty good about things with him but not these fits. it's the screaming that gets to me. it's also not being able to talk to him and calm him down. i do say things in a calm normal voice and when he doesn't stop and gets louder, then i get loud and well....it just goes down hill.

it's also hard when all he wants is eric. very rarely will he come to me when he is upset. he is a daddy's boyi get that. but it gets to me at times and hurts. and yes...i am glad they have a great relationship but i am often feeling "what about me?" i tried explaining this before but got no where. i wonder if i am doing a good job. i wonder if i am raising him right. i wonder and worry about so much. i want him to grow up to be happy. to be his own person. i have never been around kids for more than maybe an hour or two. my niece and nephews would stay the night with me but they were much older. toddlers....a whole new ball game. i really have no idea what i am doing.

working full-time, making sure the house is running (bills, food, laundry, etc) and being a mom is 3 jobs in itself. sometimes i feel like i'm being tossed 15 different ways. but i wouldn't trade any of this for anything. i wanted to be a mommy for so long and i am so glad it is here. i know that each year will be new things we will all learn as he grows. good and bad will come. i just  need to figure out how i will handle them as they come.

why didn't they give me a book when he was born on this motherhood? :)