Not a good "First"...

Grayson had a first last night! His first trip to the emergency room.

Feel free to "boo"!

G man started running a fever Thursday morning, low-grade, I assumed it was just another teething fever. By Friday morning his fever was a little higher, but as I hadn't noticed any other symptoms I was guessing it was still just teething taking him down. He nursed Friday morning and we headed out for errands. I noticed while we were out and about how lethargic he was but figured it was just the fever wearing him down.

When we got home Grayson wouldn't eat lunch but more concerning he wouldn't nurse. I also noticed him drooling which isn't common for him. {I honestly can't ever really remember him drooling, just not a drooler I suppose.} I began to have suspicions at that point that something was wrong and began wondering if his throat was bothering him. Grayson spent the afternoon extremely fussy, nothing seemed to help him, even if I got his fever down he just wasn't himself. The nursing strike continued as well as the drooling and when I noticed him actually gag and start crying I decided to check his throat. It was super hard to see but he did seem to have some white bumps on the back of his throat.

By this time it was early evening just as my doctor's office was closing. I tried calling them but didn't have any luck. I decided that I would take him to urgent care first thing in the morning. That evening things began to get worse. It had now been several hours without any hydration, and he had only two wet diapers all day. It got to the point where he was nearly inconsolable and I doubted he would be able to make it until the morning to go to urgent care. Of course by then urgent care was now closing.

It got to the point where I was debating if he should go to the ER. He had gone so long without nursing and peeing I was worried. I caved and called the on call service around 9:30 to see if they had any tips I could try to get him to nurse. They said a nurse would call back but that the wait time was as long as 2 hours. {Of course! Any other time and they call back right away!} By this time he was crying non-stop. Mel finally got him to sleep but he only slept around 40 minutes before he was up crying again.

I was worried for him! I knew the crying had to hurt his throat. :( I could tell he wanted to nurse but he just couldn't and it killed me. He would latch on for a few seconds and then when it came time to swallow he would just scream. I was a mess over it.

Finally the on-call nurse called back right around the 2 hour mark and Grayson was so inconsolable I had to have Mel take him from the room so she could hear me. She said normally they would tell me to just take him in, in the morning, but because he had gong so long without nursing or peeing that we should get him in to the ER.

I picked up my mom and we headed to uptown to the children's hospital.

It turns out Grayson has "Hand, Foot and Mouth's Disease". He never got any blisters on his hands or feet** but his poor mouth and throat are covered in them. They're very painful which is what caused the nursing strike. :(

They gave him ibuprofen and a dose of lidocaine and FINALLY Grayson nursed. It was sweet, sweet relief on SO many levels! {Apparently Grayson has gained and it was time to up his dose on ibuprofen and Tylenol but I hadn't realized so I wasn't giving him quite enough the whole time! :( }

Finally around 4 we were discharged.

Today he's still having a hard time nursing. I have to wait until it's time for more ibuprofen or Tylenol and then try and usually he's okay.

Luckily the doctor said the pain only lasts 24-48 hours.

Hopefully Grayson will be back to himself in no time!

So there's the story of G's first ER visit. Definitely one of my least favorite firsts.

**G had a couple of blisters pop up on a hand and foot this afternoon. :(

Our Week in iPhone Pics 4/29-5/5

I was as adament about taking pictures this week so I put many of the weeks photos in one big collage! {I used an awesome app called photoshake, it did it all for me! The pics aren't in any particular order so here's a little rundown from the week pic by pic {left to right}:

1- I came up with a really yummy slow cooker meal all on my own! Chicken teriyaki and stir fry veggies. YUM! 2- I snapped a pic of the clear blue sky coming out of our little country neighborhood. 3-Grayson doesn't love grass at ALL. We visited the park for a playdate and he wasn't enjoying the tall grass. 4- The kids have a crap-ton of Chuck E Cheese tickets! We turned them in for receipts. 5- Leah tries to force love upon her brother. He doesn't appreciate it. 6- I like to have fun with Siri on my iPhone. 7- Grayson chewing his thumb. Teething sucks. :( 8- Nursing 9- Sweet boy. 10- Sweet girl. 11- Ha! Me. With glasses. 12- Grayson went missing and was found sound asleep in the middle of the floor of his sisters' room. 13- Another bedtime pick of my sleepy boy. 14- The playdate at the park! G socialized with his friend Ben. 15- Passed out on one of my bff's couch! 16- Zzzzz 17- Spork! 18- Supporting a friend. 19- He didn't think the stir fry veggies were as awesome as I made them seem. 20- Leah with her beat up nose! 21- Baby legs! 22- Eyeballs 23- Kisses from Hailey 24- Beating the hit with fun in the sprinkler! 25- A very unhappy boy. :(

It was a  busier week than usual considering we spend most days being rather lazy. {And my house paid the price. Holy disgustingness!} Besides the normal errands, grocery shopping, bank deposits, preschool, yadda-yadda, this week I helped my mom with some transportation to physical therapy appointments, had a playdate for the kids, a "playdate" for me with one of my bff's, pharmacy runs and prescription drop offs, and an eye doctor appointment for myself. Mel was hardly home at all and I missed him a ton.

Who knows what next week will bring!

I'm linking up with Amy from a good life {blog}!

Depression SUCKS

Sh*t is about to get deep up in here. Dark, cavernous abyss deep. (Which is pretty dang deep.) (Now I kind of want to watch The Abyss. Have you seen it? It pretty cool. It has the Mary -insert long hard to spell last name here- chick from Scarface and the guy with the piercing blue eyes and also water butterfly alien type things.) (Okay, enough about movies, this is a post for deep emotional things. And I am WAY off track.)

(Sorry for the long and confusing intro.)

I know my life is awesome. I have an amazing husband who is literally an answer to prayers. 4 gorgeous kids who make me proud and who love me unconditionally. Friends to laugh with or cry to. Family that love me. We are able to pay our bills on time and provide for our family without struggling to make ends meet. I am witness to prayers that are answered in our life time after time.

I don't have a private jet or a mansion but I still know that I "have it all".

I am thankful and grateful.

So why do I have to use every ounce of energy I hold to force myself out of bed each day? Why do I feel so unloved when I KNOW that I am?? Why do thoughts of suicide consume me some days? Why do I feel like I hate my life when I know how much I love it.

Why can't my heart feel what my brain knows?!

Depression is a sadistic mother f*cker.

It's something I have fought literally my entire life. There's not a time in my life where I wasn't battling demons in my head. I've fought long enough to know that it's just a season, that the feelings will pass and that the thoughts are not real, but that they are lies told to me by a disease I have been cursed with.

I know it's a sickness, and that while I feel like I'm not going to make it through the day, that I may wake up the next day and feel okay.

But that doesn't make it any easier.

What really kills me are the days when my brain gives me a one two punch and I'm not only hit down with depression but also attacked with crippling anxiety.

Today? Is one of those days.

Today? I can literally picture what the cool metal barrel of a gun would feel like and taste like in my mouth. I can imagine running my tongue along the groves, before pulling the trigger. I wonder if I would even hear a bang, feel an instant shock or any pain or if it would be instant. Here one second gone the other.

I wonder if I would find myself in heaven or hell or no where at all, just an echo in space. A life vaporized. Just a speck in time.

Luckily I know that I'm sick. And that instead of a cough or fever, I'm having suicidal thoughts. And that like a cough, eventually they will go away.

What's sad are those that take those thoughts too far. Forgetting all that life has to offer, forgetting that tomorrow is a new day and that they may wake up and feel better. What's sadder are those that don't even know that they're sick. Those who don't know that what they're feeling are just lies being told from a sickness they can't control.

I consider myself one of the lucky ones.

Sometimes I wonder if I should take medicine. I feel like I do so well without it and I have a deep seeded fear that if I took medicine to kill the dark thoughts that it would sneak in and kill the funny thoughts or the creative thoughts or other thoughts that I actually WANT to have. I haven't had good experience with head meds.

But it would really be nice to not have days like this.

Depression sucks. And you really only know that if you've dealt with it. Either through yourself or through a loved one.

But depression is part of who I am.

I can't blog about the good without blogging about the bad too. This blog, I feel, has really become an extension of myself. And it couldn't be an accurate extension if I didn't include the f*cked up parts of me too.

That's all.

PS There's also an adorable pet rat, water tube creatures, sadness, and a rekindling of love. I'm talking about the movie again. I don't have pet rats anymore...or water tube creatures.

PPS Blogging from my phone again which relieves me from spelling and grammar duties.

My Personal Chef: A Chicken Teriyaki and Stir Fry Veggie Recipe

This evening we enjoyed a highly nutritious and superbly delectable meal provided by our very own personal chef.

That sentence is roughly 90% fact. If you replaced "personal chef" with "crock pot" and "highly nutritious" with "pretty healthy" you'd be dead on.

Seriously though? It was good. :)

I'm all about some crock pot cooking now. For a multitude of reasons! The crock pot is the perfect fit for me because: A) I'm lazy. B) I freeze a crap ton of meat and I suck at remembering to leave it out to thaw. C) It's so easy! You just :::insert cheesy infomercial voice here::: "Set it and forget it!" Der, hur, hur! D) Dinner basically cooks itself.

If you can dump a bunch of food into a pot, you can cook a meal.

Tonight we had chicken teriyaki with stir fry veggies. I can't really call it "stir fry" because I didn't stir fry it. I crock potted it. {Is that a verb? Because I just made it one.}

It was oh-so very, very yummy. If you would like to know how you can enjoy this yummy dinner yourself, keep reading...

Here is what you need:

•Frozen chicken breasts. I used two breasts that looked like they came from a pterodactyl which probably means I just pumped my family full of growth hormones. {Yay for premature puberty!} (I'm just kidding. I'm disgusted with myself.) (And premature puberty.) Anyway, however much chicken it takes to feed your family? Use that much.
•Teriyaki suauce. My fave is Ken's Steak House Marinade & Sauce in the Honey Teriyaki flavor. {YUMMMMMMMMM}
•Stir fry veggies. I used two bags of frozen stir fry veggies. My fave is Birds Eye Steamfresh Chef's Favorite Asian Medley. It has all my fave stir fry veggies, broccoli, carrots, baby corn, and sugar snap peas, with a little hint of Asian seasoning. Most importantly? It DOESN'T have water chestnuts. Water chestnuts are the devil and my husband and I hate them. If you love water chestnuts your sanity is questionable and it's possible that I don't even like you anymore. That's how badly I hate water chestnuts. {There's no flavor! How can you even like something that doesn't have flavor?!} (Also the consistency is horrid. It feels disgusting. Ugh. I'm shivering just imagining the wretched crunch...) (The consistency of water chestnuts makes coconut seem enjoyable.)
•Rice. Any rice at all. I like white. (White rice has really become the red headed step child of the grain world.) I know brown rice is all the rage. But I like good old white rice.
•Water. Do people normally even put that in ingredients? Don't they just add it in later, "add a 1/2 cup of water"? Or is it there on the ingredient list?

Is this even considered an ingredient list and recipe? Because basically you're just throwing stuff into pots.

Oh! And a crock pot! You will definitely need one of those.

Here's what you do:

1. Throw your frozen chicken into the crock pot.
2. Cover the chicken with 3/4 of a bottle of teriyaki sauce.
3. Pour 2 cups of water around the bottom of the crock pot.
4. Cover (Honestly, I would hope that you would know to do that, but you never know with people these days.) Set the crock pot on "high" and leave it for 4 hours.
5. Remove the chicken breasts, cut into pieces, put back into crock pot.
6. Stir in frozen stir fry veggies. (Don't forget to cover it again!)
7. While that cooks, make the rice, stirring the chicken and veggies every once in a while.
8. By the time the rice is done, so should the chicken and veggies! (Well, only if you're using minute rice like me. If you use a rice steamer, I can't really tell you because I have NO idea how long those things take.)
9. Serve the chicken and veggies over the rice, drizzle with a little bit of the remaining teriyaki sauce.
10. Enjoy!

The Big Question of 2012

What?! No blog post today? Well this may come as surprise but this IS a blog post. This right here, the thing that you are reading. (And the fact that I had to point that out to you is ridiculous.)

I'm am sitting in my van, windows down, enjoying a gorgeous spring morning while Grayson naps in his car seat, thinking about tomorrow. (I'm thinking about tomorrow, not Grayson. Well he might be too, but honestly how would I know?) (I'm waiting on my mom tiger* out of physical therapy. Sitting in cars for no apparent reason is not something I typically do.) (Unless an awesome song comes on just as I'm exiting. But then I would be sitting listening to music and that would be a reason.) Okay, back to the matter at hand...

Tomorrow is a big day. That may be a vast overstatement. It depends on what scale you're using to decide if a day is "big". On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being your wedding day and/or birth of your child, and 1 being a normal day at home doing nothing then tomorrow rates somewhere around 1.5 MAYBE 2. (It all depends on the turn of events.)

I apologize for the suspense, I know you're dying to know what is occurring tomorrow.

So i will just tell you. I am going to an optometrist for an eye exam! Dun...dun...duuuunnnnn... I know, I couldn't believe it myself.

When I had my physical done last week, they did the normal vision test. You know, the typical big E at the top followed by rows of letters that become smaller the further down you go. It had been probably 12 years or more since my last test, and I remembered how I use to rock that thing reading all the way to the bottom with my eagle eyes. When they asked me to start reading off the letters out loud I almost laughed out loud. Some mischievous nurse had replaced the chart with something else. At first I was concerned that they were really mean nurses and possibly had something wrong with them. But then I decided that they were just trying to be entertaining and were probably normal and maybe really nice. Then finally I realized they weren't playing a trick on me, I just literally couldn't see sh*t.

All I could do was laugh nervously and awkwardly and talk about how it used to be so clear and "Now, haha, it's so fuzzy! Haha...".

I was able to read the E, duh, had to work on the first line, REALLY work on the third and then just guessed for the remaining letters. "Um, it's either an E, an R, a B, or a Koala eating a potato."

Eye charts don't have pictures of koalas eating potatoes.

I knew I was in trouble. And that my days of braggable vision and smug "no I have perfect eyes" when asked if I wore glasses or contacts were most likely over. My fears were confirmed when the doc came in and as he came across the results let out a surprised, "Oh! Wow it looks like we'll be referring you to an eye doctor.". I told him that it was a relieving to know that they wouldn't randomly put a drawing of a koala eating a potato in the middle of an eye chart. He gave me a brief blank stare and then continued with my exam.

To be honest I'm a little nervous. Mostly because I remember them making me look at a little red light and then blowing acidic gas (or possibly just air) into my eyes, startling me and causing me to fear little red lights for the rest my life. And also because I don't want to wear glasses. I want I be able to brag and be smug. Glasses aren't a good look for me. Also I have a big head and they tend to squeeze my head and give me headaches. And I already have headaches all the time. My mother insists they will fit the glasses to my head but that sounds a little sketchy to me. (I don't really find that to be sketchy I just don't want glasses.) She also said that the reason I probably get headaches is because I need glasses. I don't understand her logic.

I'm holding out hope that they will tell me that I'm just getting old and having normal age related vision loss and that there's nothing they can do except give me a magnifying glass and tell me to hope for the best.

I suppose we shall see.

I will be sure to update everyone on the state off my vision as well as the big question of 2012, "Will Brianne have to wear glasses? Or no?".

*My mom is not a tiger, that was my phone toying with autocorrect. But I thought it was funny and would be cool if you thought my mom was a tiger until the end of this post.

Also, I'm typing this entire post with my thumbs on my phone so I apologize for any typos.

Teething Babies Are Sad :(

Behold, a teething baby...

 


Grayson was so pitiful Monday night. :( His teeth were giving him all sorts of fits and he just couldn't settle.






We gave him some Tyelnol and he was finally able to doze off.

Poor nugget.

I can't remember that far back, but I would imagine that jagged bone piercing your soft tender gums would be quite painful.

I wish I wasn't so incredibly terrified of Orajel now. That sh*t used to work SO good. I remember it numbing my finger when I applied it. I remember imagining all the things I could do with it. Mostly things like, numbing my nipples in the beginning weeks of nursing, or numbing my skin before a tattoo. Those types of things. I use the all-natural Orajel now but it doesn't numb my finger when applied so I can't imagine it working as well.

I always say I'm going to cave and bust out the original Orajel during the day when I can watch Grayson, but of course that's not when his teeth are bothering him, and during the day I can use the old wash cloth or bagel in the freezer trick.

Now I'm craving a bagel.

Anyway, teething sucks.

Magic Carpet Sharks

What is it about seeing a great white shark smiling at me from my television that instantly has my body tense with fear.

(Yes, great whites DO indeed smile.) (No, I'm serious.) (Tell me THIS isn't a smile!!!) (<---"THIS" is a link...click on it.)

I literally lay in fear, poised, waiting for a shark to suddenly leap from my carpeted floor and pluck me from my once-safe and cozy bed.

I instantly find myself tucking my elbows in, leaving nothing available for whatever magical rogue white shark lay in wait.

Stupid magic carpet sharks.

{My view from the edge of my bed. Where I know a magic carpet shark is going to appear and dismember me at any given moment. Excuse the mess. Those are my jammer pants, and some nightly reading.}