Merry Christmas.

Ya.. that's it. Photos to follow I'm sure

Random updates

Things have been a little crazy. Thus my lack of posting. Alan's been a little sick for awhile but nothing too serious. He just hasn't been feeling 100%

And I decided spontaneously one afternoon to chop off all my hair.

And then this week I started my new job. I'm still excited and I think I'm going to love it!

Not Me! Monday

Click the link on the left to see the original Not Me! on My Charming Kids.

I did not eat two chocolate cakes within a few days to celebrate Thanksgiving.
I did not wake up at midnight last night to clean up vomit.
I did not consider using pillowcases as wrapping paper.
I did not just send an angry email to a church.
I did not join http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ last Monday only to completely ignore it as an organzing tool all week.
I did not register for classes at the local community college at 530 am to "beat the rush"

Happy Thansgiving!

This is our new awesome fun toy. Well its not really new, its used and we've had it sitting around since before Al was born but we just pulled it out. Since we don't have any good doorways to hang it from, R rigged it up with cables to the banister and made it pretty secure. He loves bouncing in it! That's why we can only get a crappy quality picture - he never stops moving! He sits there and jumps and jumps saying "ess...ess...ess...ess" (yes) his newest word.

And yay! We got our shipment in from Cotton Babies. Here's Alan showing off all his spoils. Check out the new colors of the BG's. And he got a pair of BabyLegs (to which his father said "uh.. you got him leg warmers???" and a new wet bag which is nice but too small and some flannel wipes that we're going to give a try to.

Oh yes, and Thansgiving was good fun. We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house and hung out and ate lots and lots. We had an amazing delicious chocolate cake for desert too.

Happy Thanksgiving. Hope it was fun for all.

Not Me! Monday

Its Monday again! Time for another batch of Not Me! Click on the link to the left to see where Not Me! got started.

Lets see here.. well since he is currently passed out in my lap, I have to say that I did NOT neglect to encourage naptime in the crib as outlined in my new daily schedule, and instead, every day this week allow my charming little toddler instead to fall asleep in my arms at the computer. That would not be a responsible way to encourage independent sleeping. Also, it would be a good way to excuse myself from doing any housework because, well, The baby's asleep. But good thing I didn't do that.

I did NOT spend a whole bunch of money on CottonBabies just because, well, its free shipping - you're practically losing money if you don't. And we desperately NEED the new cute colors of BG instead of the boring pastels we have now.

I did NOT set up a Christmas tree a week before Thanksgiving.

I also did NOT join RememberTheMilk because I don't need another site to spend time on and another excuse to make lists.
I also did NOT give my little boy a cold by snuggling too much. :(

I also did NOT as a means of acquainting myself with a better understanding of Middle Earth culture, eat a second breakfast today consisting of 2 Cinnamon rolls, because that of course would be silly.

Happy Saturday..

Sorry - no new pictures today. Waiting on the new memory card. But how about an old one?

I just don't like to go too many non-photo posts in a row or I'll end up getting boring. This is from a photo shoot over the summer by our friend, an excellent photographer who did such a great job of capturing cuteness.. tubes and all.

By the way, you should check out this blog: http://www.mycharmingkids.net/ It chronicles the hectic and fun filled life of four beautiful children, BigMac, MckNugget, Small Fry and MckMuffin and their lovely MckMama.

Al went swimming today in grandma/ grandpa's hot tub once we cooled it off a little. He practically fell asleep in there. He's overall doing well. I'm surprised actually that the cold he seems to have caught from us hasn't dampened his mood. I'm kinda wondering if the Valcyte that he's taking (its an antiviral med that he's taking right now because his heart donor was CMV positive) might be counteracting the cold which is why its not hitting him as hard as it did mom and dad. Just a snotty nose and sneezes. His poor teeth are causing him some trouble. He's working on #4 and #5 right now on the bottom and is drooling up a storm. Apparently one of the side effects of Neoral, in addition to the excess hair growth is thickened gums which might be making growing teeth all the more painful.

I've also decided to get more organized. I've started sketching up a daily schedule to try to stick to as far as feedings and nap and setting aside a little more structured time for playing so we can work on some of his motor skills. Also, I know I'm a big dork and he can't even read but I made flash cards of the 8 words we decided are important to try to teach him:

1.mommy

2.daddy

3.binky

4.eat

5.drink

6.ouchie

7.hugs

8.poopy

Sick!

No photos today. Our main memory card died the other day and we're waiting for a new one we ordered.

But, R and I have had a cold for a few days. We were trying really hard to keep it from Al. Washing our hands and not getting in his face at all. But its looking like he has caught the bug - he's had a runny nose all day. Hopefully he'll get over it quickly. We've been pretty boring the last few days just hanging out trying to recover.

Um..

I passed!

CNA Test

I take my test tomorrow. There is a written section in the morning and then a skill test in the afternoon where you have to do 5 out of 24 possible skills correctly. I've studied over and over but I'm still a little nervous.

Once I pass I get to finally get officially offered my new job because they have to have someone who is certified. I'm so excited!!

Not Me! Monday.

OK.. here is my first try at this. These are all the things that I did NOT/ do NOT do.

1. I did not give two other moms dirty looks at the hospital this morning for arriving at the lab 15 seconds before us, thereby securing a significant place ahead of us in line for Transplant Clinic today and getting to be outta there sooner on such a busy day.

2.I do not find myself out and about, starting to make a phone call and feeling a wet, slimy goo against my ear because my son likes to use the phone as a chew toy.

3. I do not bribe said child to eat something.. anything by mouth by giving him smashed oreos and ice cream in lieu of fruit/ veggie purees.

4. I do not play this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIYaxG_YZDg in one window over and over while screwing around online on the other.

5. I do not force my 1 year old to stand in as a pretend patient to practice all of my CNA skills on.
6. I did not spend the entire weekend using disposable just because I was too lazy to move the cloth diapes from the washer to the dryer.

Click on the link to the left to check out the original Not Me! at My Charming Kids.

Happy Sunday Evening

Sorry I haven't posted this weekend, but that's because I was working on a super awesome new blog!!! http://agtake1.blogspot.com/ going back in time and explaining Mr. Al's story and his medical drama and his cute baby pictures.. and the scary hospital ones as well. I decided if I'm ever going to get this stuff all written out I better do it now while I still motivated and sorta remember.
Not too much to tell.. that took up much of my weekend which made me realize how deficient I am at html.. grrrr R and I went to see the new Bond movie last night. It was okay.. not nearly as good as the last one though.

I take my CNA test on Wednesday. I'm so nervous - I keep going over and over my notecards. I'll be bringing them along to the clinic visit tomorrow to drill it into my head better and I'm going to make R get his blood pressure taken a bunch of times. Once I get that taken care of, I can get things set up with my new job.. and start working again soon.
Although this unemployment has been refreshing - really need to start making some money.

Lovely - I will be back tomorrow for my first attempt at an official NOT ME Monday.

First Snow

Playing in the Snow
Yay. Super exciting. We were a little worried it wasn't going to happen. Very unusual around here to have no snows in September or October. R went in to the shop to work this morning so A and I thought an adventure walk in the snow was in order. So after a cup of coffee for mama and a feed and meds for A while watching some WonderPets we bundled up and went out into the winter wonderland.
Not a huge snow by any means but its A's first snow to see since he's been a big kid. We wandered around and checked out the playground. When Alan's a little bigger we're excited to get to go on the swings. Not much to do with everything covered in snow.


So, as you can see - not a big snow by any means. Not even enough to cover the tennis court but a pleasant little surprise to wake up to. Here comes winter!

NOT ME
Oh and one more bonus. While it may not be Monday yet, this can't wait.. I need to share a Not Me a few days early. ..





I most certainly......






...indubitably








.. did NOT...










feed a toddler as one of his first foods....





an Oreo!











Nope.. NOT me. (And NO, R and I didn't go through almost an entire pack in under 24 hours)

Overslept our alarm.. oh no!

We had a rude awakening this morning. Mondays and Thursdays are hospital mornings and we usually are up by 6:00 and out the door between 6:30-6:40 to arrive by 7:30 for labs. Well last night we were up late because I had a minor case of insomnia, up reading recipes from Mckmama's blog and Rob was experiencing super insomnia trying to decide whether to get a new riffle for hunting before new Prez O reinstates an assult riffle ban.

Well, I don't know what happened to the alarm clock but I opened my eyes to the clock reading 6:40. I dragged the guys out of bed, we dosed out the feeds and the meds and threw Alan in the car in his PJ's. Somehow traffic was great. We made it to the lab at 7:40, back into the clinic at 8:15 ish and were out of there before 9:30 which is a record for us. Alan didn't even get to finish watching Little Einsteins.

We made a stop on the way home to get take out Blue Sky food. My breakfast burrito was delicious. Then Alan and I took a nap on the couch watching the history channel which has made me groggy ever since!

Here's some random cute photos just for the heck of it.

Here's our scholarly boy last night learning his animal words:

Home Cider Brewing Fun

Backtracking a little but here are some photos from cider bottling last week. We made apple cider as our first attempt at brewing on our own. It was pretty easy compared with beer. Its pretty good - tastes like a dry apple wine. I think these will be our Christmas gifts for family. The name of our cider :Alan's Apples of course!

Here's a finished product!

Me filling the bottles
Rob showing off the equipment.

That was the big jar we brewed the cider in.

Frosting, Notecards, Etc.

Well today I managed to keep the computer off for a good part of the day. A way to not be tempted. I got several loads of laundry cleaned and put away and cleaned both bathrooms which was a major accomplishment for me - the non domestic.


Then this afternoon I made notecards for all my CNA skills - such skills as helping with bedpan, blood pressure, cath care, transferring client from bed to wheel chair, etc. I think I'm pretty much there in terms of memorizing the procedure for each of the skills. I wanna make sure its second nature to me when I go to take the exam. Mmm.. and I've been eating some frosting this afternoon from our fridge.. Yum.


Alan's done a little eating. The doc suggested not worrying so much about timing when he's hungry and just give him something every time we sit down to eat a meal. He had some yogurt last night and then this morning some banana oatmeal with real milk!

I'm officially a blog failure..

And I swear I'm trying to fix that and pick it back up. Things have been just slightly crazy lately. Just a quick summary update - Alan had

a mini-rejection ish episode about a month ago. He was treated with IV steroids and bounced right out of it. Off oxygen and off a whole bunch of his meds at this point.

Then - a few weeks ago, I finally was laid off. The death of the real estate industry caught up to me. Not too bad on timing because I just finished my training to be a CNA. I take my test to be certified in the state next Wednesday. I'm pretty nervous because I actually have a job lined up - which is contingent upon me passing and getting my license.

Mr. Al just had his first real Halloween and decided to go as Superman. No outings for us. We just stayed home and waited for the trick or treaters that didn't show up. Zero. Seriously - we live in a condo complex full of children - how hard would it be to hit up your neighbors for candy. Well 5 bags of candy got left to us to take care of which is never a good thing.

Not too much else exciting to report. I was really hoping that my time of unemployment would bring about a flurry of domestic activity on my part. No such luck. Still just as much of a slacker without working. We're lucky to keep the little guy fed and medicated and maybe a couple loads of laundry done a day.

Latest project is trying to get this guy interested in food. We just saw his GI doc today and we've decided to give dairy a try. maybe he'll be a bit more interested with some yummier options to taste. Might have strawberry yogurt for snack in just a little bit and see how that goes over. Here's a shot of him one tube-less evening before we replaced one of the NG's he'd yanked. And here's my cute little executive office assistant sorting out the sticky notes.

Thursday

Okay Alan came off ECMO yesterday which went pretty well. It was rocky at first getting everything balanced once he was off but he was very stable all throughout the day. Tried yesterday letting him be unparalyzed but it made his pressures go up a little. This morning he had his chest closed. He's looking awesome to us. They'll try again with getting him off paralytic so he can do some wiggling. Alan's a champ. Now that the chest is closed he gets to move forward with the immune supression. He'll have his immune system wipped out so that he can start over with the body hopefully not rejecting the heart.

Latest on Alan on Monday

OK.. sorry I haven't been able to do any updates for awhile. The internet at the hospital and my brain are both not working very well so I might not be able to get on much.
So as far as transplant, we got called a little after 11pm Saturday and he got into the hospital around midnight. A doctor of his left around 430 am to the location of the donor to check it out and harvest it. He went into the OR around 830 am Sunday and got started. The heart arrived around 1130 ish - don't quite remember. It was a very long procedure. Besides just transplanting he required a lot of reconstructive work to his pulmonary arteries and vena cava that were all jacked up. I think he got out around 6 pm.
So, what happened last night around 11-midnight ish, his blood pressure plumitted putting him in cardiac arrest, to the extent of needing to call a code and about 30 seconds of CPR. This episode was likely caused by gause left in the chest to soak up bleeding - compressed the new heart to much to function properly so the sponges were removed and he started doing much better.Then as time went on, his heart was working really hard - kept going back and forth between better and worse. Finally at 8 am Monday, he was put on ECMO which is life support for the heart and lungs. The goal will be to only stay on it for about 48 hours to give the heart a rest. The major risk to that is bleeding, particularly to the head. So far though no signs of excess bleeding.It sucks that he's on the support but for having to be on it, he's doing well in everything else.He's got some awesome docs. The surgeon who worked non-stop all day in the OR on him, sat in his room all night watching his monitor and pushing the syringes of blood volume Alan needed by hand.
Hopefully things will stay about the same for awhile as we get him some rest and then hopefully within a couple days get him weaned off the support and his heart can try working on its own again.

Yay

It looks like the transplant is on. It sounds like a viable heart. The surgeon is on his way to get it and he'll probably be in the ER by 8 am!

Hospital

Well.. we are at the hospital now. Alan got a call that there is a potential donor and got to the hospital at midnight. He's admitted and gotten his blood work and his first dose of immune supression but we haven't heard anything definite as far as if its gonna go through or not.

More info to follow. We're just hoping it goes forward.

Bubbles

A relaxing and eventless labor day weekend so far. Yesterday we got some bubbles for Alan to play with out on the deck. He really wasn't so sure what to think at first but then he got more and more curious and started to have fun with the whole thing. He's been getting stronger and stronger and doing a great job at sitting up. I love the age he's at. There's just so much wonder in his eyes exploring the world. Ooh and now he's got 2 awesome little teeth on the bottom.

We've been pretty boring lately not being able to go anywhere. I've had way too much time on my hands to get all political. Its fun for me though because this is the first time in my lifetime I've ever seen an election that really mattered this much. Having the DNC in town was really exciting. It made the whole city pretty crazy. I would have loved to try to go to the last night of it at Invesco field but things are a little too crazy here to do anything like that. I'm excited to watch the RNC next week too.

birthday

Yesterday was my birthday.. yay. That means its almost Alan's birthday too. It was cool. I got a REI purse thing that I'd wanted and homemade BBQ Bacon Spinach pizza and a giant chocolate cake and this interesting concoction made from Grand Mariner and Vanilla Coke.. Yikes! And watched more Olympics and Battlestar Galactica.

Here's my birthday present. I love it!

Oh and the biggest news.. Alan's working on another tooth! Its been bugging him and as of last night, his second one had just popped through. They are so cute. Still kinda crooked.

He's finally getting a little more rambuncious about wigglying around trying to get into trouble. Here's his new favorite toy. His wipe box.

Well, happy Saturday.

Yay..

First time blogging.. here we go!