Day 90

Gus went to bed around 8 last night and slept all through the night. He woke up just before 7 and was bright-eyed and bushy tailed. :)

We went downstairs and had breakfast and then Gus played for a bit before we had to head out for my Triangle Mommie's breakfast playdate. It was at 9:30 and right here in our neighborhood, which was nice. Here are a few pictures of Gus taken before we left:

My child LOVES Mickey Mouse Clubhouse! I was trying to watch some of my shows before we left, but the DVR was gray and required me to reboot the system and I didn't know how to do that. So instead, I saw the MMC was on and Gus was mesmerized by Mickey. I don't let him watch TV (really, I don't) and he's never interested when I do watch it myself, but there's something about MMC and the colors and music that he absolutely loves. 

So we headed out for our breakfast playdate and we were the first ones there. There ended up being 15 kids (I think two came right at the end too, so 17) and then like 9 or 10 moms. It was a full house! It was the busiest event that I've been to so far. Kristen was there with Grace, and then Melanie was there with Oliver, so Gus had two friends to play with. 

All-ages playdates are always tricky. There was a toy that a little boy (maybe 4 or 5) was playing with and Gus saw it... and of course, he wanted it. So Gus went over to where the kid was, and tried to grab the toy. The kid totally pushed Gus back (really hard) and Gus slammed down on the hardwood floor. He smacked his head and started to cry, and the kid still has his hands on Gus... so I went (of course) to Gus and picked him up and told the boy not to touch Gus.The mom... where was she?? Oh, right... she was totally not paying any attention to her child and was talking with the other moms. 

Grrrrr....  I know I can get crazy about stuff like this, but seriously? It pissed me off that the mom wasn't even watching her kid and didn't do anything to show him that it's not okay to push babies!

Melanie totally saw it happen and she and I took our boys somewhere else and I said, "Note to self... avoid the boy in the green shirt." We laughed, but it wasn't funny that the kid could have seriously hurt Gus and no one was there to reprimand him. I just have to keep things like that in mind for the next all-ages playdate. Bigger kids don't always have the patience to deal with the little ones like Gus.

It was around 11 and Gus started to show signs of being sleepy (after being up so early I was surprised to see him last to 11).

 

Gus and Grace

We left around 11:45 and I had one last coupon for free Chick-Fil-A, so I headed over there and grabbed me a free drink and a side salad and char-grilled chicken sandwich. We got home and I ate while Gus played and then I was about to take Gus up for his nap when Steve called.

He told me how to fix the DVR and reset the satellite. As I was on my way into the living room to do this, I misstepped while climbing over the gate, and totally twisted my bad ankle. I scared Gus and he started to cry, and I felt like I was going to pass out. Fortunately, I was able to just rest it and while it throbs and hurts, it's okay. I rested for a little and then brought Gus up here for his morning/afternoon nap.

I had hoped to go grocery shopping this afternoon, but I don't feel like it. I think I'll just go tomorrow. Suzanne is coming in the morning to clean, and I'll head out after she's done and Gus has had his morning nap. I must get him back on a normal schedule!!!

I got a FB message from P that she talked to C last night about coming to Gus's finalization, and they wanted to let us know that they'd love to come and share the special day with us. I can't even express how it makes me feel. We are so very lucky and blessed to have them in our family. I don't know of too many adoptive families that have their child's birth family present for their Adoption Day. It'll be so very special with them there. I think we're going to go to lunch after, just them and us, to celebrate.

>^..^<

Day 89

It's been an off day around here. It started off with waking up later than usual and then it threw off the nap schedule for the day (Gus usually naps around 10:30/11ish and again around 2:30/3ish and he didn't go down for the fist nap until noon, and is just now going down for the afternoon nap and it's 5:15.

It's rainy and cold and the two don't make for a good day. Elphie pooped in her crate and then got it all over her and I had to clean it up and about threw up doing so. I'm over the dogs. I don't have any patience left for them and their antics.

So this morning, this is what I saw when I walked into Gus's nursery:

Those would be his pajama pants, his froggy and his bottle. Not a good sign... fortunately I didn't smell poo so I wasn't too concerned that he had taken off his diaper and pooped everywhere. He had just taken off his pants.

He was quite pleased with himself, as you can see.  :D

We came downstairs and played for a bit. I gave him another bottle and while I was feeding him, it made me laugh because he wouldn't sit still for me. He had to get down, but wanted the bottle. He reminded me of a baby animal...

Because he looked so cute in the elephant outfit that Jessica gave him, I decided to take more pictures of him. Yes... this is how I get through each day. Pictures, editing, and more pictures. :) It could be worse.

Here are some of my favorites from today:

So this afternoon I watched the season finale of Teen Mom 2 and One Born Every Minute. I'll start my commentary on TM2 and then go into my commentary on OBEM.

TM2:

Janelle

This girl is a HOT mess. So she got arrested for breaking and entering because she just HAD to go see her BF. He was staying at his friend's house without permission, and told Janelle to come see him. She went against her mother's orders, and decided to stay the night in the house. While she was there, she fell asleep and the boyfriend left her. She wakes up to the police and gets arrested. When the cops go to find her boyfriend, they find him drunk and snorting coke.

To top it all off... she goes and bails him out. She has a son and her mom is raising the kid, but she wants to go and party. The girl should never have kept the baby. He deserves to be with loving parents and not treated like a second thought. I can't stand her.

Keltie (hahaha) Kailyn

She's just dumb. She has no place to live, has her baby, and is going to school and can't pay for it. Her ex's parents let her stay there for free and provided child care, but she threw it all away for a dumb guy that she works with named Jordan. The chick is so annoying.

Leah

She and Corey got married this episode. I can't stand her either, but at least she's taking her role as a mom seriously. I don't have much else to say about her.

Chelsea

Another hot mess. She is so babied by her dad it's sick. He pays for everything for her, and she has no idea what the real world is. She doesn't have to work, her only "job" is to finish her high school degree so she can go to hair school, and she can't do it. On top of that, she let her baby daddy Adam move back in with her, made her best friend move out, and then was surprised when the baby daddy started treating her like shit. He is a jerk and instead of dealing with him, she has her dad do it. Annoying.

Okay... so then I watched the last episode of One Born Every Minute. I love this show... it's on Lifetime and it takes place in Ohio. It's a maternity floor with cameras in the rooms to caputre the births of the babies and it's really cute. All season they've shown various aspects of birth and it's been really interesting to watch. Well, today there was a 22 year old woman having twins (one boy and one girl) and she was placing them for adoption.

The first thing that upset me was that the show said she was "giving her babies away" which isn't the case. No woman "gives" her baby to anyone. It's placing not giving and there's a HUGE difference. So it was a little sad to see that the show didn't do any research on this before talking about it.

So anyway, it was very emotional to watch. It was sorta like watching our own adoption with Gus. The adoptive parents came to the hospital and were ushered out by the social worker. (I wonder if they are all rude, or just the one with Gus and the one on tv.) Anyway, then the mom had the babies and her mom was in the room with her and they cried and cried. The mom had placed a child for adoption six years before this and then had a baby that she parented and then got pregnant with twins. She said she could barely raise her one child, and knew she couldn't raise three. 

When the nurse was asking the mom about her daughter (the one she placed for adoption when she was 16), she said that she didn't get to see her a lot, but she knows that she's adopted and calls her by her first name. Then the nurse asked the mom's mom about being a grandma. She said that it was really hard to watch her 16 year old have a baby and then place it into the arms of another family. She said that her granddaughter calls her Grandma Joan. She was sad that she didn't get to see her granddaughter and missed her very much. She said that with adoption, you lose that part of you. You don't get to claim the rights to the child that's biologically yours, because it's now the adoptive family's child.

It was emotional and I cried. The adoptive parents were overjoyed to become parents and the mom was so happy to be able to give them their dream. They didn't say if it was an open or closed adoption. Once again my heart broke watching them all say goodbye.

It made me so very proud to be apart of open adoption. It's not for everyone, but it's absolutely beautiful and it's something I feel so honored to do. Instead of thinking that there is something wrong with me and maybe God doesn't want me to be a mom (hence the infertility), it's that I am meant to be Gus's mom. Period.

I had to call the attorney's office again to double check that I said April 15th for Gus's finalization. I have a BAD habit of saying one thing and thinking another. (Like going to eat and I say I want one thing and then get mad when something totally different comes and I ask Steve and he tells me that I ordered it.) All I needed was to say May 13th and think I said April 15th. So Sandy laughed when I called and she said that she filed everything this morning and we're set for 11am on Friday the 15th. :D

I sent P and her mom M an email on Facebook asking them if they wanted to join us for lunch after the hearing. P's mom (C's grandma) lives way north and only gets to come down state every so often. We had hoped to meet her in May (when we thought we were going back to MI), but she wasn't going to be able to meet us because she was going downstate in April. So she's super excited that she'll be in the Detroit area when we're there finalizing, and she'll finally get to meet her great-grandson! We're not going to see anyone else from Gus's birth family on this trip. We'll see them all in July when we go back to celebrate his birthday.

Then I was thinking some more, and I decided to ask P if she and C and M wanted to come with us to the court hearing. It's a very special day, and I understand if they don't want to go, but I thought I'd ask if they wanted to come too. I don't know if my mom or dad are going to go, probably not since they both have to work. However, it's very special and I'd love for C and P to be apart of it if they'd like. We'll see. Maybe it'll be too hard for them to be there, but then again, they're so open to everything that it might be something that they'll want to be apart of. It would mean so much if they were there.

Gus is finally sleeping (it's 5:40)... nothing like fighting a nap. Steve is at NCSU for the evening and I texted him to bring me something home on his way. I don't feel like cooking and it's already late. We'll see.

See you tomorrow!!

>^..^<

Day 88

First things first... Steve's camera on his iPhone takes pictures that look 1,000 times better than the camera on my phone. You can tell the ones that he takes with his versus the ones that I take with mine. The above picture was taken with his and is of Gus tonight.

Today was a big blur for me. It was battle after battle of getting Gus to nap, which he refused, and then he's not really eating a lot (had less than 20 ounces of formula) but did eat a lot of hummus tonight. Weird. I think it's either the head cold or teething.

I've felt like blah all day and then made dinner and it was blah. I thought it'd taste better than it did, but it was too spicy for me. I hate that.

Here are some pictures from Gus tonight:

 

Action Jackson shot... he moves a lot now...

My friend Sara Witt (AGD sister) tweeted a link to the EMU Alumni page having pictures of baby's wearing their Born to be an Eagle bibs. She said that she knew two of the babies pictured. I followed her link and there was my little man! One of our other sorority sister's kids were on there too! I took a screen shot and then if you click on the picture it'll take you to the actual page:

Steve is speaking at NC State tomorrow night and will be home late. I hope tomorrow goes better for us than today did!!!

>^..^<

Day 87

What a day! It started with getting up at 3am with Gus crying. He was fighting us last night before bed and ended up taking about an hour to calm down and finally give in. He had a bit of a fever and we gave him some Tylenol and it helped. So he got us up around 3 and then went back to bed about thirty or forth minutes later. 

I got up at 8:30 (on my own) and expected to hear him, but he was snoring. I decided to take a quick shower and hurried through it, only to finish ten minutes later and hear him still snoring. He slept until 9:15! We came downstairs and played for a bit.

I made myself a bowl of cereal and then took some pictures of Gus in his skeleton pjs. I got them a while ago from Wal-Mart for $0.75! It was too good a deal to pass up, and they're cute! So I took pictures and then Purry decided that my cereal smelled like poo, and he decided to try and cover it, and ended up knocking over my entire bowl. It was Honey Bunches of Oats with raisins... no smell at all, and yet he was trying to cover it. LOL

Here are some of the pictures that I took of Gus this morning:

I gave him a nap and he only slept for like 30 minutes. We headed out to Wendy's to meet Wendy (hahaha) for lunch. While there, I noticed that Gus's left ear was really red and hot to the touch. He felt hot too, definitely a fever. Wendy suggested that I call my pediatrician's office's nurse advice line. I didn't even know that they had this! I called and left a message about Gus's symptoms. Wendy said that she used it all the time when K was a baby. We got back to my house and Wendy took Gus's temp (in his butt) and it was 101.1. I guess normal is like 99.4 or something like that... he was definitely having a fever. 

Wendy left to go to her parent's house for the night, and I finished reading my book for Scholastic (yay I finished it before the deadline!!). The pediatrician's office called and they said that with his fever and red, hot ear, they wanted to see him. They asked if I could bring him in at 5:00. I said yes then called Steve and left him a VM about it. He texted back and said he'd be there.

I'm so lucky to have a husband that cares about his family. I was prepared to take Gus myself, but it was so nice that Steve came too.  While there, they weighed Gus and he's now 21.5 pounds!!! Only another 1/2 pound and we've reached the max limit on the car seat. We'll have to put him in the one that Wendy gave us! My little baby is getting big!! However, he's still in the 44th precentile... so it's not a bad thing at all (he's not overweight).

Here are some pictures from the appointment:

They didn't take his temperature (weird right?) but the doctor said that it could be teething (he is due to start sportin' some teeth), but he didn't really feel anything coming in when he checked. He said that it's more than likely just a head cold, and his ears and lungs were completely clear. He said just give him a warm bath before bed and some saline drops and he'll be okay.

Well, I was so happy to hear that it wasn't an ear infection. We went to Carrabba's after and then Rita's for dessert. Yummmm... they had the Swedish Fish again (yahoo) and then we came home and gave Gus a bath. He's now been in his room sleeping for about an hour and I hear him, so I need to go!!

Until tomorrow!!

>^..^<