Poopy, Poopy, Wherefore Art Thou Poopy?

Oh what a day. For those of you who follow me on The Facebook you already know about how my day went. It basically went like this: Feed Baby, Burp Baby, Soothe Screaming Baby by exercising legs, rubbing tummy ,a warm washcloth & every other old wives tale out there. Mix in a few hours of work, interacting from a distance (If you, too, are getting over the never ending cold raise your hand) with Cayleigh and her nurse and whatnot in between. *sigh* No poop. Not one single turd did this little turd make ALL day. *queue anxiety* I made the phone call to the doctor, left a message, went to Google, tried more stuff, called the doctor back again and still NO POO. Shoot..I even FACEBOOKed it for goodness sake! {by the way, you can put your hand down} It seemed that nothing I did helped this kiddo and he was just.plain.perturbed about it. low and behold, many prayers later (and a warm bath, and massages, and pressure points, and a little water and wanting to cry myself) He heard me and my little man shot a rocket! whooo hoo I've never been so happy about poop in my life. (except maybe that first day after a C-section..... but I digress) and that is the jist of it. what'd YOU do today?

It's My Birthday & I'll blog if I want to

I'm officially in my 30s folks. That's right. I'm 31. What's that I hear you thinking? No, no I wasn't in my 30s before today. Before today I was, in fact, at the end of my 20s. You see, 30 is the very tail end of that ten year "20-30" span that I gloriously called my 20s. Makes sense right? Just go with me on this one. {It is my birthday after all. gosh} Wondering how I feel now? Want to know if there have been any eye opening revelations as I've turned this corner? The answer is Yes but the reason is not 31. The reason is a blog. It was one of those readings that make you scratch your head and go 'hmmm'. A real ponder-this moment. You can read it here. In my twenties I think I was the mom on my Iphone even though God put it on my heart to be more attentive to my children. The more this whole technology thing brings us closer together the more it brings us further apart. *shakes head* Seriously folks... I could see myself in the words of that blog and it struck a nerve. God has a way making those moments happen in our lives though.... especially when He's been trying to get through for the past few months - - and especially since I'd been praying for Him to help me do it well before that. *sigh* and yet...we are human I'd just like to go on the record as saying that I am, in no way, a perfect parent. As a matter of fact in the long line of parents I'd say I'm somewhere between that octolady and Madonna. But, I do try. I think that it's when we stop trying to better ourselves in any area of our lives and start getting comfortable or think "hey I got this" {your welcome for that run-on sentence} that we begin to fail. When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. It's true. So, in my thirties I am vowing to NOT be an Iphone mom. In fact, aside from taking pictures of my family with my Iphone and uploading them I'm pretty much not going to be using it. Save the technology for bedtime. As a mom its our job to be a mom while our kids are awake. So, I'm going to be a mom. The Iphone can wait, so can the emails, so can the status updates, so can the latest gossip, so can ...and so forth. When you look back in ten years and realize how little time you actually spent interacting with your children is it really going to be worth it? Will your Iphone need therapy or will your kids? Harsh words - but this is a self scolding here folks. All that mellow drama aside I'd have to admit that the first day of my thirties has been pretty great. My hubby took me to lunch at Logan's Steakhouse, he cut up my steak and cracked my crab as I nursed Noah. *swoon* Then I got a mani/pedi.. then we picked up the kids, found out the secret to calming the baby (holding him out in front of you, swinging slightly and singing "Mambo..Mambo..Mambo..Mambo...Mambo...Mambo...Mambo." just like Diego. (yes, the cartoon kid with the big head who is cousins with that football headed Dora girl who wanders the jungle unattended). Then tonight Nic made us dinner, we played Life with the kids and had a birthday cake bakes by my husband. His first ever..and it was delish. I'm a really blessed woman. I am thankful for my 'little' family, for my husband, my marriage, my family, my friends, our health, and all the rest that goes along with it. Thanks for listening to my very first rant of my 30s. Hope you'll be back for many, many more. oxox Samie Joe

Special Needs Momma Syndrome

I'm a hypochondriac. There, I said it. I do have a goodreason for that though. It seems that being thrust into the world of raising a special needs child, especially from birth, tends to make one...let's say...overly aware of medical issues. It really, REALLY opens your eyes to every little minute detail of anything the could even possibly be wrong with your child. From the all too common development of thealarmisgoingtogooffwhileiamintheshoweritis to the fear that you'll fall asleep and somehow not hear the alarms. Or maybe that's just me. For me, panic attacks that I'd never before encountered in my life started happening. The onset would be either as soon as I arrived at the hospital doors or the moment I arrived at the ground elevators on my way up to the 15th floor. It's the sights..the images..the sounds that surround you when your little tiny baby is in the West Wing of the USCF Childrens Hospital - where they keep their most critical/complicated cases. They had four wings, with the Preemies in the North and..well..you can probably guess the names of the other two wings. (If not, refer to compass) I would worry from the moment I woke up until the moment I fell asleep. I'd pray my way through the panic attacks and I'd get angry at anyone who so much as even coughed in my presence. I began carrying hand sanitizer. Scrubbing in became a way of life. Masks- no problem. In fact, I carried masks in my van for the kids when they got home from school because, you know, they're around other kids and other kids have germs. The kids would have to take their clothes off when they came home and change. Noone could be near Cayleighs room when she finally was released. We went nowhere. Bubbleboy? Pssh.. he had nothing on my kid. Fast forward to being pregnant with Noah. Hypochondria & fear set in full swing. Every little thing was an issue. The fear of a 5th csection scared my. The thought of anesthesia not working {again} horrified me. I panicked. Sure that the csection would result in the end of my life. I literally panicked all the time. BUT I prayed. I held myself accountable for my irrational thoughts and I gave them to God. I asked others to pray. You know what? When the moment came to go in to surgery & even in it - I prayed my way through it and I actually ENJOYED it. Aside from that whole Noah being completely limp upon birth...but evenespecially then I prayed. and God HEARD my prayers...and God breathed LIFE into my son. I got goosebumps just typing it. He did ya'll. For reals. Now here I am. 9 days post partum and my newest fears is over my stupid blood pressure. Well, let's backtrack a bit. First it was that I had a spinal headache. Ends up it wasn't a spinal headache I was experiencing but it was, fact, severe electrical like shock pain in my spine at the spinal site and in the back of my head that pulsated when it acted up - and that was due to nerve damage from the spinal. A little nerve damage I can deal with. My blood pressure it up though..well, the diastolic is up. They put my on labetalol (this was Friday) and I felt a bit at ease. Of course I googled my little heart out about things like "effects on breastfeeding" (even though the Doc put me on it because I am EBF, and I also asked the Pharmacist to double check him), and "side effects of labetalol" (even though the Doc said there really aren't any) and so forth. But today I got dizzy/lightheaded and I got fearful. I mean like really dizzy/lightheaded. At the time I didn't take my blood pressure but I immediately figured that is what it was. Why? Because I'd mentioned being a tad dizzy on the med and Cayleigh's nurse said (prefaced by "I don't want you to be afraid, this is just a possibility) that I could've been dizzy due to too low of blood pressure. Even though I read that it is normal to be a bit dizzy on it, especially around the 48 hour mark, as your bp begins to decrease as the medicine is finally stabilizing in your system and bringing your bp down. *sigh* I know. So then tonight I took my BP with my handy dandy wrist cuff, which a nurse already told me NOT to use because they are so inaccurate. but I did. Because I still felt a little dizzy and was convinced it was too low. Low and behold it showed 200s over 100s. Like three times. *sigh* So then of course I was sure that I was going to have a stroke. All the medical stuff comes flooding in and the pre-eclampsia and the stroke and blah blah blah. Then I was "is my upper right abdomen hurting" and "am I having vision problems" and so forth. *shaking head* I made the hubby drive me to Meijers. I used theirs. It was just like it was the doctors office Friday. 150s over 90s. I am so tired of worrying. I prayed a lot, but I think I could use some prayers too. I'm not letting Satan get foothold and I'm looking to God for guidance & healing. Not just for my worry but also for this post partum hypertension. I am going to give God the glory and just laugh at myself. I decided to write this post so I can look back on it and laugh, scold myself and remind myself that it really is just all in my head & that God is bigger than any problem. I hope you all got a kick out of my issues. I thought I'd share though. I know I am not alone in this big boat of being a Special Needs Mom who is a part time Hypochondriac. It's, unfortunately, somewhat normal from what I hear. One of those side effects listed on the bottle when you start in on this journey I suppose. In the end, I just want to say that I have an incredible husband (who shakes his head but still drives me to check my BP), and then who treats me to Applebees takeout for dinner, puts me on orders to get in bed, plates my food brings me my meds, a full ice water and my laptop. I am one VERY, VERY blessed woman to have him. I really, REALLY am. Thank you all for your prayers for me as I struggle to overcome fear, maintain a healthy dose of medical awareness for myself and most of all get rid of this hypertension once and for all.