"Just" a Stay at Home Mom

About a year ago I made the final decision to be a stay at home mom.  There were a lot of people who didn't agree with my decision and were quite vocal about it.  I spent a lot of my time trying to explain why I felt it was so important, but I really couldn't put it into words.  I just knew it was what I wanted to do.

I absolutely love being a stay at home mom.  I've heard many people say that the transition for them was hard, but for me, it honestly wasn't.  I'm not perfect at it, but I really do love it.  Even still, there has been the occasional time that I wondered what our life would be like if I had kept working.

Until the other week when we found out that Joey had pneumonia.  As I said in my previous blog post, we took him to an urgent care because our regular pediatricians office couldn't get him in that day.  As we were sitting in the waiting room, a young man who was sick came in with his mom.  His mom was on the phone the entire time trying to find someone that could watch him for the rest of the day because she had to return to work.

We spent about three hours in urgent care.  The PA kept apologizing for keeping us there for so long.  I assured her that I really had nothing else more important to do, and that my focus was on helping Joey.

When we got home, Joey was exhausted.  I laid him down for a nap, and he woke up about 10 minutes later because of a coughing fit and a stuffy nose.  I finally got him calmed down and he fell back to sleep on my chest.  As I laid on the couch with him sleeping on my chest, I felt so grateful that I got to be the one calming, comforting, and taking care of my child. I felt so strongly that I was definitely doing what was right for our family.  I felt so strongly that every sacrifice we have to make will be 100% worth it.  I felt so grateful that we had been blessed with such an incredible blessing.  I felt so grateful that my husband is willing to go to work everyday so that I can stay home, and that he has such a wonderful job that allows us to still be secure financially.

I know it's not right or possible for everyone, but it's right for me, and I'm so grateful we decided that I would be "just" a stay at home mom.

Family theme 2015

Earlier this year I read a friend's blog post about their family theme for the year.  As I read her post, I felt strongly that it would be important for us to have a family theme for our family, too.  So about a month ago we had a Family Home Evening discussing what our family theme was going to be for the year.

We decided on the theme "We Are One."

The theme came from a talk President Uchtdorf, one of our general church leaders, gave a few years ago.  At the beginning of this year, our local church leaders counseled us to have regular family councils so that we could be more unified in our family decisions.  They also promised that as we did so our children would learn how to voice their opinions and how to compromise.

As we discussed the different potential themes, we felt strongly that these would all be imperative qualities for our children to have to succeed in life.  We also felt that it would be important for Neal and I to be more unified in our decisions as parents.

We have already found areas that we can be more unified in, and it has already strengthened our marriage to work on them.  I'm really excited to see where this theme takes us this year!

Crackling in the lungs

Almost two weeks ago, Joey started coughing at night.  No fever, no runny nose, just a nasty cough.  It was pretty loose, so we weren't to worried about it.  A few days later, it was pretty much gone so we definitely weren't worried.  On Tuesday, his cough came back in fits, and it sounded MUCH "tighter" than his original cough.  It started sounding very "asthma-y" so it made me worry.

One of the nights he was coughing, I called the nurse line at our pediatrician's office.  Among other things, the nurse I talked to said that if his was breathing more than 40 breaths for minute he needed to see a doctor.

After Neal left for work on Thursday, I started listening to Joey and realized that he was breathing really fast and wheezing.  When I counted the number of breaths he was taking, I realized he was taking 60 breaths a minute!  That was WAY too fast.  So I bundled him up, got him in the car, and we headed to urgent care.

We ended up being there for about three hours.  They tested him for RSV and it came back negative (thankfully).  They gave him an albuterol treatment through a nebulizer which helped his breathing a LOT.  Then the PA (who was wonderful by the way) listened to his lungs, and since he wasn't wheezing she could hear "crackling" in his right lung.

Because there was a radiology clinic in the same medical complex as the urgent care we went to, the PA sent us over to get an x-ray of his lungs done.  It was SO sad to watch him :-( there was a little plastic tube they had to put the top half of his body in to keep him still so they could get a good picture.  It tore my heart out to see him look at me with eyes that said "Mom, I don't feel good and you're torturing me." It was definitely a lesson in having to watch your child go through something that's painful short-term for their own good long-term.

After the x-ray we headed back over to the urgent care and waited for the radiologist to look at the x-ray.  I fed Joey and then put him to sleep (it was like 11 am and he had slept for 10 minutes since he woke up at 6:15 am that morning).  This is where I learned how awesome the PA was - once Joey fell asleep, she turned off the lights, brought me water, and brought me a pillow to put under my arm so it didn't get tired holding Joey.

About 45 minutes later the radiologist called the PA and told her that he couldn't diagnose pneumonia based on the x-ray.  After talking to the PA for a couple minutes though, she told me that because of what she could hear in this lung, she wanted to go a head and treat him for pneumonia.  So, they gave him a steroid shot, sent us home with a nebulizer, albuterol, and amoxicillan.

Fast forward four days of antibiotics, albuterol every four hours, lots of naps on mom, staying inside,  and a follow-up doctor appointment, he's doing better.  The pediatrican today said that she could still hear some wheezing and some crackling, so we're still keeping a close eye on him, but we get to only do nebulizer treatments as needed instead of every four hours.  His energy seems to be coming back, which makes things interesting because we have to keep him calmed down so he doesn't get wheezy.

So, we are staying home (other than necessary outings) for the next couple days so that he doesn't pick up anything else to make things even worse.  Mostly, we're just grateful that he didn't end up in the hospital and that we were able to take care of him at home!

Joey - 10 months

I seriously feel like I just posted this about Joey being 9 months old.  People have always told me that life would go so much faster once we started having kids.  I honestly didn't believe them.  I do now.

Poor kid spent today coughing up half a lung (not literally of course.  If he were we'd be at the hospital and I wouldn't be posting this).  But seriously.  He randomly started coughing last night after he went to bed.  Like nasty, wake-mom-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-because-you-sound-like-your-choking cough.  Despite that, we spent the majority of the day with Neal, out and about, running errands.  Joey got some sweet new kicks so he can walk around outside :)

"All the other kids with the pumped up kicks"...who won't hold still long enough for their moms to take a picture.

We started off the last month with Joey's 9 month check up.  He's doing really well, especially with his physical milestones.  He's not doing as well with his communication milestones, but his doctor said he's still doing fine with it.  I'm making a conscious effort to talk to him more throughout the day, and it already seems to be helping.

Joey's favorite toys right now are his "trucks" and his big squishy blocks.  He can stack 2-3 blocks by himself.  He also tries to copy the sounds I make for each of his trucks.  It's pretty cute to watch him pushing trucks along blowing raspberries :)

Joey got to play out in the snow twice in the last month.  With the Christmas money he got from my aunt we bought him a snow suit.  He's not a fan of the suit, but seemed to like feeling the snow with his hands at least.  I'm sure he'll warm up to the suit once he's worn it more (which requires us getting more snow.....)

He discovered toilet paper.  And toilets.  He no longer gets left alone anywhere near an open bathroom door.

He figured out how to use the "monkey trap" to get his snacks.  And then decided it was fun to turn it upside down and pour all the crumbs out.  The poor floor at our church building.

He watched the last Broncos game with Neal.  He was obviously enthralled ;-)

His favorite thing to do is walk.  In order to save our backs, we put a drumstick in each of his hands and hold onto the other end.  He will now find his drumsticks, pick them up, crawl over to someone, and hold up the other end of the drumstick.  It's hard to say "no" when he asks so nicely.  (I don't have a picture with the drumsticks.  We have to much fun actually watching him.  I'll have to try and get one this month).

He's started dancing a little bit.  If there's music playing and he thinks no one is looking, he will bounce up and down a little bit.  As soon as he sees you looking (or any sort of camera) he stops.  Shy boy :-)

He has the best bed head ever.

The dishwasher is his favorite appliance.  He will be on the opposite side of the house, totally entertained by what he is doing, hear the dishwasher open, and rush over to play with the bottom rack.  He also refuses to eat if the dishwasher is open and he's in his high chair.

We played with flour one day.  It got EVERYWHERE.  As I was washing his face off, he kept trying to climb into the sink.  I realized that there was zero harm in him being in the sink (with me standing there of course) so I stripped him down, and he sat and played with the water for at least 10 minutes.

He is finally tall enough to look out our bedroom window.  He loves looking outside.

He's becoming more attached to the little dinosaur Neal's cousin, Melissa, crocheted for him.  It goes to bed with him everytime he goes to sleep, and he cuddles with it until he falls asleep.  Makes my mommy heart swell with joy. 

He also can completely fall asleep on his own at bed time.  Actually, he prefers it.  Unless he's feeling sick or has had a hard day, he will actually push us away if we're rocking him to let him know he wants to lay down in his bed.  It's making the middle of the night a lot easier because he only wakes up to eat twice a night (usually).  The great part?  We did it without making him scream for hours. No judgement towards people who do cry it out, but I felt very strongly that "cry it out" was not for our family.  I did a ton of research to find something that I felt was more gentle to help him learn how to fall asleep.  Basically, we started with a chair right next to his bed for three nights.  Each night we would pat his back/rub his back/head less each night.  On the third night we moved the chair about a foot towards the door.  Every third night we would move the chair another foot until we were finally outside the room.  I was actually surprised with how well it worked!  It was awesome!

It was a pretty awesome month, and we've got a lot coming up next month, too! (PS.  I feel like I say that every month.  But really, every month with him is wonderful!)