and then there were four…

As promised, here is the saga of how I took a trip to the “express” care while visiting the family, then the trip to the ER two days after I returned home. If you have read the archives (or are a long-time reader), you may remember how we had to make a trip to the ER when pregnant with Olivia. I joked with Bill after this past trip, how it wouldn’t be a pregnancy for us without a trip to the ER.

When pregnant, you tend to go to the bathroom a lot. Normally the “going every 10 minutes” phase is not until the end of the pregnancy, but apparently my growing baby didn’t get that memo. At least once a night (or very early in the a.m.) I am up and peeing. While at my mom’s house, I tried to make as few nighttime trips to the bathroom as possible, since I was sharing a room with Olivia and didn’t want to wake her by entering and exiting the room too many times. One morning, after feeling as though my bladder was going to explode, I ran to the bathroom and sat down, and waited for that sweet release. And waited, and waited, and…”what the fuck is going on here?” I thought. “How can my pee not be coming out?” So I shifted my belly, moved around a little bit, wiggled…but, nothing. Here we are, going on 20 minutes and I can’t start my stream of pee. I feel myself getting frustrated, but I decided to go back and lie down, maybe shifting my body while lying down could do some good?

Five minutes after lying down, I felt the urge stronger than ever, so I got back up and sat back down. Oh sweet pee!

“That was unusual” I thought to myself, “but, nothing burned or smelled funny, so it’s probably just a fluke.”

After it happened again, I decided that I should probably contact my doctor just to make sure. I was told (since I was out of town) to go to an urgent care facility or other doctor’s office and have my urine tested, just to be sure. You can never be too careful when pregnant.

After lunch that same day, my grandmother, Olivia and I headed over to the new and improved “Express Care” center in town. Apparently, using the word “urgent” was too confusing for people. I can only assume folks were coming into the urgent care with limbs falling off and gunshot wounds or something. People who thought “hey, it’s URGENT”. I really don’t know why they decided to change the name, but they also stuck the “Express Care” center across town from where it used to be, and right next to (actually adjoining) the Emergency Room. I suppose it makes it easier to send those gunshot victims to the ER if they are right next door.

I filled out the paperwork, left Olivia & Grandma in the waiting room, all the while praying Olivia would be content in her stroller, since I knew there was no way Grandma could keep up with her if she unbuckled her from the seat. After peeing in a cup, having a Physician’s Assistant press on my belly and waiting an hour, I saw a doctor. He said my urine looked fine, but they were going to get a bladder ultrasound machine just to make sure there wasn’t a problem there. So I waited…and waited…another hour later my grandma pushes the stroller into my examination room. “Well, we decided to come and see what was taking so long.” she said. After realizing my grandma had left the diaper bag in the waiting room (she hadn’t noticed it was there at all), and going back out to get the bag, we hunkered down in the exam room and awaited the doctor and his bladder ultrasound machine. Oh the things you can do in an exam room. Rubber gloves make excellent balloons to entertain a toddler. There are faucets, tables, curtains to pull on, man, the possibilities are endless!

Three hours after we arrived, I was released with nothing wrong with me. They still decided to give me some antibiotics, just to be safe. They were safe to take while pregnant, so I was happy. I didn’t anticipate any more problems, and for the remainder of the trip, I had none.

After being home for a day or two, and finishing up the last of my antibiotics the night before, I woke up around 5 a.m. desperately needing to pee. My bladder felt like it was going to explode. I sat down and waited…and waited (you see where this is going?). I thought that maybe if I drank some water I would get the party started. Oh, that made me had to pee much worse, with no results. Not a trickle, nothing. I was in agony. Thirty minutes later, nothing…by now I am starting to get mildly anxious, because the pressure was really building. Bill told me to try jumping in the shower after being unable to pee for close to an hour. “After all,” he pointed out, “when do you most want to pee? When you step into the warm shower.” This was a completely logical idea, so I took a warm shower, but nothing. I was crying and getting really upset because the pressure was starting to cause me pain in my back. I called my doctor’s after-hours number and was told that if the pain was too intense to wait until the office opened, I should definitely go to the ER. We’re now closing in on 2 hours of actively trying to pee, with no results.

We load Olivia in the car, give her a cup of milk and start our drive to the ER. Olivia is in a pretty good mood, she still has a cold at this time and is sniffling and coughing, but nothing major. Bill had reservations about taking the baby into the ER, but I felt like I needed him to be with me, I was scared, in pain, and what other option did we have?

So, Olivia drains her cup of milk and we are driving along, almost at the ER, when all of a sudden she coughs extremely hard and starts spewing milk. She’s not too upset about it, but it just keeps coming, which freaks her out a little.

Now, I’ve heard a lot of stories about being a mama bear, taking care of your children above all else, etc., I had always felt myself to have that in me, I have put Olivia first since before she was born, but this time, it was different, because I was in such excruciating pain I couldn’t move. However, as soon as she started throwing up, all of my own pain was forgotten. I jumped up, unsnapped my seatbelt and started wiping her down, checking her to make sure her mouth was clear and making sure she was alright. Luckily we were stopped at a red light, but Bill looked over at me and said “Just so you know, there is a cop in the lane next to us.” I looked over at him and said “well he’ll just have to give me a ticket, I have to take care of my baby right now, and I don’t care if there is a cop next to us.” Bill laughed and said “I know, just thought you would like to know.” I also told him that he just needed to drop me off, take Liv home and get her cleaned up and then he could come back for me. Olivia needed to be at home, with her daddy, and not in a crowded ER with sick people coughing all over her. I knew I had the strength to take care of my problem on my own. I just needed some puke to clear my head, apparently.

My puke-covered baby is happy again, and suddenly my pain comes into focus, and we can’t get to the ER fast enough.

While the guy is taking my vitals and getting my info, I am doubled over in pain, my bladder is so full I can’t stand straight. I had never realized how connected your bladder is to the rest of your body (haha), but the pain in my back was making it close to impossible to walk. The nurse helps me to a bed (after waiting for one to open up) and I am seen by a nurse-in-training and a doctor. The doctor says they will have to catheterize me, which I was assuming, since I had no idea how else they would drain my bladder. At that point, I didn’t care. I knew how painful the catheter would be, but I kept telling myself that it couldn’t be any worse than the pain I was already in.

Boy, let me tell you, that nurse-in-training had the most magical touch. It was uncomfortable, but nothing as bad as the first time I had to be catheterized. The relief was intense. I won’t go into too much detail, except that after all was said and done the doctor told me that I had had the equivalent of two six-packs in my bladder and he wasn’t surprised at my pain. He gave me another three days of antibiotics and some of those bladder pain pills that make your urine bright orange (both safe for the baby, obviously: I triple-checked).

His diagnosis?

Bladder spasms. Apparently it happens to people all the time, and obviously, it can be really common during pregnancy. The next time it happens he said to sit in a warm bath (of course standing in the shower did nothing!) but you just need to relax the muscles. He also told me I did the right thing by coming in, because as we know, you can never be too careful when pregnant.

Just so you know: Milk puke is probably the worst smelling puke in the world (so far as I know). Poor Bill had to drive around for two weeks with the windows down and I had to wash the car seat padding twice just to get rid of the smell.

But, all’s well that end’s well, as Pa Ingalls used to say.

I’ve been very exhausted this past week, which is why I have been so lax on the posts. I’m sleeping every spare minute, and it still doesn’t seem to be enough. I thought that was supposed to end after the first trimester? I suppose running after a 16 month old while 19 weeks pregnant probably doesn’t equal to being well-rested, so I won’t complain.

I think I have been feeling the baby move around! I say think because the feeling is different than when I was pregnant with Olivia, which is odd. I guess I was anticipating a certain feeling (the one I had when pregnant with Olivia) but I’ve been getting some very different feelings, which I am guessing is baby movement. Very cool that I’m starting to get to that stage, I’ll be happy when my belly starts to fill out more. I’m trying not to be too obsessed this time about having a “round” belly, I’m just trying to enjoy my ever-changing body. As much as possible.

I also realized that I promised a post regarding my various hospital trips while I was out of town (and when I got back) and I haven’t forgotten. Okay, I did forget, but I will get to it in time. Honest!

For now, I found this post that I started to write and never finished. So I’ll finish it and that should satisfy my need to post today.

Olivia is a very well-behaved child, this I know. She does very well when we go out in public, she doesn’t tend to have meltdowns too often, and she is just a pleasure to be around.

This is not to say she isn’t also very mischievous and drives us batty at times. We are constantly pulling her out of bathrooms, closets, bedrooms she shouldn’t be in, drawers and cabinets, etc. It’s just, in public, she’s a very good girl. This sometimes drives me crazy because of the reactions I get when people talk about our “other” children. Even before I became pregnant the second time, I would hear a lot of “well, don’t expect your other children to be as good as Olivia is…” and very similar statements.

Let me just tell you, this drives me absolutely INSANE.

I just hate when people use Olivia’s good behavior as an invitation to say “you won’t be so lucky the next time around”. If I ever mention how well she is sleeping, eating, behaving, etc. This poor child has not even been born yet, and already people are setting him/her up for disaster. It’s not fair. I refuse to believe that our next child will be “better” or “worse” at any given thing than Olivia. It isn’t nice to prejudge. Everyone is different, and I won’t be treating my children as if they should be carbon copies of each other. Sure, Olivia may be an excellent sleeper now, but she wasn’t always that way–The next child may be similar, may be different, but sleeping habits are not something that dictates if a child is good or bad. That’s fucking ridiculous!

I love my daughter with all my heart, I know that as my firstborn, our relationship will be different than my relationship with this next child. Different, not more special or better. DIFFERENT. But, to think (or imply) that my second child won’t be (or isn’t currently) just as special or wonderful also makes me crazy. I know that my children won’t be carbon copies of each other, and that is what makes it exciting. This child is special because I won’t be as crazed or worried about doing things wrong, as I was with Olivia. I feel like I may be able to relax more, and enjoy my body, my growing baby, the birth of my baby MORE because I know what is coming. I’m not scared like I was before. I’m a different kind of scared, sure, (TWO kids? What in the world am I getting myself into?) , but to think that this baby won’t be as sweet and well-behaved as Olivia is just wrong. Will we be raising this child any differently? Perhaps we’ll be a bit more relaxed, but I don’t foresee any major changes in our parenting style, so why would this child be “bad” where Olivia is “good”?

All babies have different temperaments, and it is true that this child may not be as easygoing as Olivia, it is also true that he/she will be MORE easygoing. Who knows until we meet this child? Why should I plague myself with the worry that this baby will be a hellion, when the truth is, Olivia was not a great sleeper at first, she is currently not eating her veggies like she used to, and she can drive me crazy with her constant pulling dvds and games off of their respective shelves. Basically, those things are irrelevant to me, I still love Olivia with everything in my being, and love “the baby in the belly” (as we refer to him/her when talking to Olivia), with everything in my being also. Comparisons will be made, but not comparisons to determine which child is better or worse. It would be like comparing apples to oranges. Totally pointless.

Bill and I recently upgraded our cell phones about a month ago to these nifty models. I got the green, he, the orange. We love them so and play with them more than I realized, since last month we overdid it with our text messages–but, in fairness I was out of state and that’s the main way we were communicating.

Anyway, tonight I received an email from his cell phone. It simply read: need tp…

Instead of yelling from the bathroom like we would in the past, and risk waking up our darling daughter at 11 p.m., Bill simply sent me a text.

Now that, is technology at work.

Since I’ve been feeling a bit better lately, I decided yesterday that we should resume our morning walks to the park.

This morning we took our walk to the park, played on the swing, the slide, had our juice, ran in the grass and sand, and then I decided to make a stop at a local donut shop (The Donut Prince–how cute) for a small treat for Liv and I.

I didn’t have cash, but I thought the Prince would take debit cards, since most places do these days. When I walked up to the window I didn’t see the signs that most places display to let you know they do, indeed, take credit/debit cards. So I did the smart thing and asked before I ordered.

“No, we are cash only, maybe a check if you are local.” The nice man at the window said.

“Oh, that’s okay, we’ll just come back tomorrow, but thank you!” I smiled at him.

“Please, you live around here?” he inquired. I told him that indeed we did live down the street. “Well, please, tell me what you want, you come back and pay me tomorrow!” he smiled. “I’ve been here 33 years and I have so many people that do that, I trust you!”

I told him I couldn’t possibly do that, but thanked him profusely and told him I would be back tomorrow. But the Donut Prince was persistent. I double checked my wallet and found two quarters. I noticed that for that price I could get a donut hole. A perfect amount for Olivia.

“Okay, I’ll just have a donut hole.” I said as I placed my quarters on the counter. He took two donut holes out of the case and tried to give my money back to me. I was persistent, so he split the difference and took one quarter and gave me one back.

I thanked him again and told him we would be back soon. Which we will. How sweet is the Donut Prince?

The donut holes were pretty tasty too.

You realize how true it is when you are watching Grover scream “STELLA!!!” over and over again running through the streets of Sesame.

Also known as: “Why I will always buy Olivia an airline seat from here on out.”

We were scheduled to leave on Tuesday afternoon, on Monday, I realized that my cold had been passed to Olivia. She was crankier than anything I had ever seen, but she managed to get through the day of visiting with relatives without any major meltdowns (maybe she likes to meltdown in private?). Anyway, I knew she was not feeling well, so I cranked up the vaporizer, gave her some Children’s Tylenol and put her to bed around 8 p.m. I had thought how easily she had gone to sleep, and was happy that her cold wasn’t keeping her awake.

Flash forward to two hours later: Olivia is screaming her head off, crying, snotty and miserable. I normally don’t respond when she has middle-of-the-night awakenings, but I knew she was sick, so I felt that after about 30 minutes of her not being able to get herself back to sleep, it was more than just a routine wake-up. I got her out of her crib, and tried to rock her back to sleep. Nope. Tried to lay down with her, not really happening either. We called Daddy. She wanted none of that. She wanted to get up and play, but since everyone else was already in bed (we were closing in on midnight) and the whole idea was to get her BACK to sleep, I didn’t let her out of the room. MAJOR meltdown. She screamed and cried and whimpered. I felt like a horrible mommy, but I knew she was just sick, the snot and coughing were just making it close to impossible for her to get back to sleep. We lay back down in the bed and turned the Food Network on, and she was trying to calm down a bit, snuggling into me and wanting so badly to get some sleep. I turned the TV off and she tossed and turned for quite awhile, but she finally fell asleep around 12:30-1 o’clock in the morning.

It was a restless sleep, and she woke up around 5:45 wanting to play, so I got up and took her to the living room, where she ran around for awhile and finally crawled back into my lap and tossed and turned a bit until she fell back asleep around 6:45. I wanted to KILL the folks who had to get up to get to work/school, they were so loud and I had JUST gotten Olivia back to sleep. They didn’t realize we were in the living room, but damn they were loud. She slept until about 8, and while she didn’t get her normal 12 hours of sleep, all in all she got about 8, so I thought that may not be so bad. Besides, I still had time to squeeze in a morning nap.

Luckily she took a morning nap and she seemed to be much better (crankiness wise) by the time we hit the airport. She was still coughing and snotty, but overall, she seemed to have a better attitude and I thought “maybe, just maybe, we can make it.”

The first leg of the trip was only about an hour and a half. We were lucky: the plane wasn’t full and Olivia had her own seat. She still wanted to wiggle out and she hated that I kept wiping her snot-nose, she got a bit fussy, and threw a book (much to my chagrin). However, we made it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t quite enough time in between flights for me to make a pit-stop and grab something more than a bottle of water. I had snacks, but I hadn’t anticipated not having at least enough time to buy a sandwich and I just prayed we would make it 5 hours without Olivia needing more than cookies, crackers or the snack-pack you can buy on the airplane. Hell, I hoped my pregnant ass would make it without getting too cranky.

Luckily, after much seat-hopping, (not on my part, thank goodness), everyone was safely seated and Olivia once again had her own seat. By this time however, I was praising God and promising to always buy her a seat from now on, because what are the odds? Besides, I was beginning to think being able to put her in her car seat may help keep her from getting so cranky. Only because she seems better-equipped to sleep when she is in the car seat, because she hasn’t quite grasped the concept of “you have full seat to stretch out on!” Besides, if she is strapped in, she can’t wiggle out and down and whatnot. I’m also buying a portable DVD player if I can find one cheap enough. If I can load her up with enough Blue’s Clues and/or Disney, perhaps I won’t stress so much about what she is going to want to do after her last book has been read.

Thankfully I was seated next to a very kind lady who was so understanding to our situation, and said that despite Olivia being so cranky, you could tell it was due to her cold and not because she was a bad kid. I’m sure she was being really nice to an overly stressed mama, but I appreciated it all the same. Anytime Olivia got really cranky and started crying (she would cry anytime something didn’t go her way), I would walk her to the bathroom. Mainly to make sure she wasn’t annoying too many people, and also to calm her down. I would wipe her down with a cool cloth, change her diaper if needed and talk to her, let her play in the sink, whatever it took to make her feel better. I know she wasn’t being cranky because she is a brat, she was SO sick and she didn’t know how to handle being sick, since it was the first time she had been in that situation. There was actually one time I took her in the bathroom and just cried right along with her. It was stressful, and I didn’t quite know what to do, I had never dealt with her being this way and I wanted to take it all away, but I knew I couldn’t.

I got extremely lucky and Olivia fell asleep twice during the flight. She slept in total about 2 hours, which was really nice. Unfortunately our trip was a bit longer than anticipated due to some storms in Colorado, so we had to fly around them, causing our flight to be about 45 minutes later, but we stuck it out and survived. I had never been so happy to see the runway in all my life. If any of my other flight experiences had been like that one, I probably would have never flown with Olivia until she was older, however, since I understand it was because she was sick, I’m not holding it against her. I am however, shelling out the extra cash and buying her a seat of her own.

Also: Thank you so much to the wonderful flight attendants on our flight. They saw I was struggling and when they came around for beverage service and I said that I wouldn’t be able to handle the baby and a drink, she said “I can give it to you, you can chug it and I’ll take it away.” Which she did and which was awesome since I was in desperate need of water. They also told me not to worry so much about Olivia, she wasn’t the worst they had seen.

Even if they were just being kind (which, I’ve seen some bad-ass kids, so maybe they weren’t), it made me feel so much more confident and better about our situation, so thanks again!

My mom has two dogs. Rather, my mom has one dog and my sister has one dog which both live at the same residence. My mom’s dog is a Shitzu named Maximus who stays inside. My sister’s dog is a black lab mix named Thor, who lives outside.

Olivia has never been around dogs very extensively. She has seen dogs at the park (and been fascinated enough to want to chase them down) and on TV. She also has many “daw” stuffed animals and books. Apparently the real deal just wasn’t what it cracked up to be for Miss O. My mom will swear to you up and down that eventually “she started to like Max”, which is partially true. She did, near the end of our trip, begin to warm up and allow him to lick her fingers (much to my dismay) and she would chase him around a bit. But there were also times near the end where she would fuss and run away from the dog, seemingly scared of him. The jury is out until we meet another “daw” and see what her reaction will be. For the most part, anytime Max would start barking, Olivia would start crying. If he would run around too quickly, she freaked out and ran into my arms. I can only imagine what she was thinking “This looks like a toy, but, he is moving way too fast, toys aren’t supposed to move like that!” Shit, it would freak me out too.

During our visit with my cousins, I was a bit afraid of her reaction to my cousin’s dog, who is a teeny tiny little dog (think: purse-sized) named Muffin. The dog has been around much longer than any of the kids, and seems to get along well with children. I still thought Olivia would be frightened of the dog, since she had been freaking out around Max since we had arrived two days earlier. Oddly enough, the small dog fascinated her. She would run around, pointing at the dog and saying “doggie”, “daw” and wanting to scoop him up.

BTW: Please don’t ask me why she can say “doggie” but not “dog”. I have no idea. For now, “daw”= “dog” and I, for one, am okay with that.

Near the end of our stay, while we were in the historic downtown area of town, Olivia was patiently waiting in the car with her step-cousin (who is 7) and I was out in the cold talking to my sister & mom. While we were chatting (and I was trying to avoid their cigarette smoke to the best of my abilities), a horse and buggy was coming down the street. Apparently they offer buggy tours of downtown (something I did not know), and I pointed the horse out to Olivia and said “Look Olivia! A Horsey!” Low and behold, my child looked at the horse, smiled, pointed and said “horsey!”

She had never said that word before and it was so freaking awesome. Granted, it may not seem like such a big deal, and I’m sure it’s not, but it is just the coolest thing to see your child do something new. Watching her learn is so much fun.

The next afternoon, when my mom took her outside to play, she was obsessed with the “horsey” in my mom’s yard. Apparently the big dog looked more like a horsey to her than a dog. In her defense, Thor is about the size of her rocking horse she has at home. My mom thought it was the most hilarious thing she had ever heard.

Now, everything is either a “horsey” or a “daw” if it looks even remotely like one or the other.

In similar fashion, anything that is round and red is an “apple” and anyone who is under 4 and a half feet tall is a “baby”. Very cute, even if some short folks may not think so.

As I mentioned in my last post, we arrived at my mom’s house, safe and sound. I had a cold, but was trying to “power through” so I could have an enjoyable trip.

Saturday morning: the start of our first full day on Eastern Standard Time. We were scheduled to attend the wedding of one of my best friends from High School. I was looking forward to this, I hadn’t seen my friend in probably a year and I knew that there would be other friends from High School that I had not seen in ages in attendance. I thought I would power through the day, cold be damned! I was going to see my friends.

However, my cold had, by Saturday morning, grown into a gigantic, full-blown cold. No longer did I have just a slight stuffy nose and semi-sore throat. I was blowing snot every couple of minutes, my head was cloudy, I was miserable. But, it didn’t matter, I was still planning on going to the wedding. I would just have to suck it up (literally and figuratively). Unfortunately, Olivia woke up with a very different ailment: Diarrhea. So, on top of dealing with my cold, I was dealing with lots and lots and lots of runny poop most of the day. I couldn’t tell if it was from the immense amounts of juice she had ingested on our plane ride, or if it was due to her molars which were (and still are) coming in.

Regardless, she was a very cranky (and poopy) pants, so I was unsure if I would be able to make it to the 2 p.m. wedding. Around 10 a.m. I  put her down for a nap. After almost an hour of her screaming her head off I knew that she wasn’t going to sleep. New environment, new bed, new smells, sounds, etc. along with the diarrhea meant she was not a happy napper. At this point, I knew my child would not make it through a wedding ceremony in one piece. Sure I could have gone myself, and left her with my mom, but it didn’t feel right leaving my sick baby with her grandma who she wasn’t quite used to at this point. So we ended up not going. I was bummed, but ultimately preoccupied with the poop and crank my child was emitting. I think I made the best decision, she ended up being able to recover enough and by the next morning she was up and running (and not quite so poopy).

I was still very snotty and miserable.

But again, when there are things to do and people to see, you force yourself to put on a happy face and forget about the problems you are having. It’s called being an adult. It kind of sucks.

Sunday we were going to visit with my paternal grandmother and see my Aunt, Uncle and all the cousins and little cousins. I had no idea how Olivia would handle being around 3 other children who were under 4. I shouldn’t have worried. She had a ball playing with her cousins and it made me so happy to see them all interacting together. The older two (who are 3 1/2 and 4 1/2 years old) were so sweet to her and wanted to “help” her play with things, and she seemed to be very interested in her other small cousin, who is only 4 months younger than her. We had a wonderful lunch and visit and I was able to see my cousins who were practically like my brother and sister growing up. My cousin’s wife is also pregnant (I may have mentioned this earlier) and is due only 10 days before I am, so it was nice to talk to someone who is going through similar things (although, I still have the nausea–she said hers went away only a week or so earlier, so I was hopeful mine would follow suit).

Later in the afternoon my sisters, mama and I took Olivia and went into town to do some shopping. Since most everything closes down by 6 p.m., our only options after then were WalMart and Target. I’m not sure if I have ever mentioned how I feel about WalMart, but we ended up at Target. I think my mom and sister bought everything in the store with a red clearance sticker.

I am a big bargain shopper, as previously mentioned, however, I have gotten better about not buying things I don’t need simply because they are on sale. My mom and sister have not learned that lesson. “I might need it” or “She’ll grow into it” were common phrases heard throughout the trip. I had to literally look at my mom and tell her I would not be storing shoes for my daughter that she wouldn’t be able to wear for two years simply because they were on sale for $3. As it was, Olivia managed to gain 4 new pairs of shoes (all about $3 each). My sister’s boyfriend has two little girls who she adores and treats as her own (her step-daughters without the marriage aspect) and she bought them a ton of things because they were “on clearance”. I couldn’t help but laugh at them both as we were checking out, our carts loaded with stuff that we had not intended to buy when we walked in the door. I used to do the same thing (and am still guilty of in moments of weakness) until Bill pointed out how if you don’t really need something, you are still saving more money by not buying things. Yes, it makes so much sense, but the thrill of the red clearance sticker sometimes makes you go a little cuckoo.

Gotta love them, they are so precious ;o)

I was always so stoked about the “lap child rides for free until age 2″ policy airlines have. Who wouldn’t be? You can fly to visit the family (or wherever), without having to pay for an extra seat for two whole years! It’s wonderful! Terrific! Great!

Yeah, until they hit about a year old I would imagine. Actually, probably closer to 9 or 10 months, when the child wants to wiggle, squirm and not sit still for 4-5 hours at a time. Sure, this may not be true for all children, perhaps you have a perfectly wonderful toddler who wants to sit still and relax on your lap for long stretches of time. My child is so well-behaved I thought “how can I go wrong?” However, since I had not flown with Miss O since she was about 9 months old (and still nursing), this trip was an experience.

This is not to say that she was bad: she wasn’t. In fact, our flight over was not too bad, we just did a lot of going to the bathroom to change diapers, drank a LOT of juice, ate a LOT of snacks and read a LOT of books. Luckily the seat next to us was free, so we were able to utilize that and enjoy a pretty stress free trip. Sure she was tired and cranky at the end, wanted nothing to do with sitting still and tried to run, walk, and crawl (of all things!) all over the airport after we got off of one plane and were waiting for the next, but she didn’t cry or fuss and she was pretty darn well-behaved. I even had one woman comment on how wonderful she was, and how terrific a mother I was with her. Really made my day!

That being said: I will be purchasing a seat for Olivia from now on. I had sorta made my mind up on the trip out, but coming back home DEFINITELY made me see the light. But, it wasn’t her fault (as you will read in later posts: I promise!) however, I feel like at this point, my tummy will only get bigger, she will only get heavier and squirmier, and we were just blessed by the heavens that we had open seats on each of our flights. (Thank you Lord!)

Our seat-mate on the way home (who was such a lovely, lovely woman!) said “yeah, I remember ‘that trip’, the one where you realize you have to buy a seat for your toddler. It seems like everyone has to go through that, so don’t worry, you’re doing fine!”

I swear, it was so much easier when I could stick a boob in her mouth and she would fall asleep for a few hours out of the trip!

But we made it to my mom’s house in one piece, where it was COLD and where luckily my mom had gotten Olivia a few winter coats (I couldn’t find any big enough ones around here!), so she was snuggled up nice and cozy (and looked a lot like a little Eskimo with the furry hood).

Unfortunately the day before our flight I had developed a sore throat. I really didn’t think much of it, because I had not had a full-on cold for a few years. I thought it was just my sinuses draining and causing an itchy throat. Oh I was so so wrong! I did not escape this cold. I don’t think I’ve had one that bad since before I was married. Since I was pregnant, I couldn’t take any medications, nor did I want to, but it made the recovery process a bit more drawn out and miserable. The whole trip, I slept with the vaporizer running every night, did lots of saline solutions, sucked on lots of cough drops (they’re non-medicated!) and tried the Netipot which I highly recommend for all people with a stuffy nose. Whether it be from a cold or just your normal sinuses, this thing really helped. I think that my being sick contributed to the stress of flying that day. However, I would take my being sick and flying over Olivia’s being sick and flying any day!

More on that later…

I’ve been back home for the past few days, but have been unable to sit down and write a post describing my wonderful trip to the homeland. I will be splitting up my adventures into separate posts, because I just don’t think I’ll be able to get everything out in one sitting. We had lots of illness, a trip to the urgent care (I mean…the “express” care), a trip to the emergency room, a puking, lots of poop, and lots and lots of tissues and vaporizers. But don’t worry, we also ate lots of good food, saw lots of fun family members and had a nice, cold time.

Just so you know: we are all on the road to recovery, but you can see why I am going to take a little time on detailing all aspects of the trip. I promise, you’ll enjoy it!