Photo fix for the day...

Happy birthday, Mom!

So, this is my mother. Today she turns 49. Here she is, enjoying a glass of wine (she loves a good glass of wine). She's all dressed up and ready to go because her sister is picking her up to take her out to celebrate. Woohoo! I love you, Mom....

Mr. Husband.

DH's surgery went well. The recovery has been something else.

Apparently before his surgery they gave him 5 Verseds, where they normally only give 2-3? I have no idea what that means, but from what I gather, it is a drug to relax and it is also an amnesia drug, so no wonder he has no idea what the surgeon told him after they were done. Also, they had a hard time getting him to wake up, so they sent him to recovery--he wasn't suppposed to have to do that.

Well, DH is finally feeling slightly better today. He still can't use that arm for awhile, but the pain has gone down a lot. The day of the surgery, the nerve block wore off on the way home (they told us it usually lasts up to 18 hours). We started with the Hydrocodone then, which only minimally helped. It hurt him to lie down, even on his back. He didn't sleep more than an hour that night and had to be in a sitting position with pillows propped up in front of him.

Wednesday was hardly better. He spent the entire day on the couch. I took an early lunch to run home and change Andrew's diaper, and when I returned to work I called my mother-in-law to see if she could go over to the house for a few hours (she doesn't work and really never has anything going on during the day, unless you count going to Goodwill and resale shops "something going on"). I cannot just keep taking off work; my boss really needs me here. So, this is a small favor, considering she lives 5 minutes away, but I digress...

Yesterday, I dropped Andrew of at MIL's house before work so DH could spend most of the day resting. He e-mailed me in the afternoon and told me things were much better, so today, he is going to try taking care of Andrew. He'll call me if he needs me to take an early lunch (diaper change) and he can always call his mother if he needs her to run over and help--she said she had nothing going on today.

I have a feeling when I get home from work Andrew is going to be naked. :) That's DH's way of dealing with diaper changes in this tough time. Oh well, we have wood floors and ceramic tile, so it is easily cleaned up. He can clean something up with his left arm better than he can attempt to put a diaper back on, unless Mr. Squirmybug happens to be still--then it's a lot easier.

Oh, it's my mom's birthday tomorrow--she turns 49. I have to figure out a gift, and am thinking of a gift certificate for an hour massage. She needs that so bad. We are all going out to eat tonight at Friday's, if everything goes according to plan (sometimes in our family, something will be all set up to go and then plans change, which I hate).

Oh, and before we go out to eat, I am going to stop by a co-worker's house. She runs a part-time as-needed daycare out of her home (for example, my other co-worker takes her son, who is Andrew's age, there just on Mondays). We are thinking 2-3 times a month of taking Andrew there so he can interact with other children.

Sorry this was so long, and I hope I didn't put you to sleep. Happy Friday!

Video: Andrew and the birds (+ Mystery Mommy w/Wisconsin accent)

Well, everyone else is doing it--posting videos, that is-- Nancy and Rachel, for example. I decided to pull out my point-and-shoot camera and take a quick video.

This is typical Andrew behavior: playing with wires, scaring the birds, and acting goofy. This is a short vid, so hopefully it'll load quickly. Watch for Andrew's spaz at the end before my camera battery died!

Andrew in black-and-white...

You all know by now that I love take photos. Well, my new camera rocks, and lately I've been snapping shots left and right, so please bear with me as I share some new photos of my favorite subject!

Daddy and Andrew sharing an orange

Andrew fake crying. He handed me the Curious George Goes Fishing book, the one he never sits still for--not even a page--it's too long, so I put the book back down.

This is literally 2 seconds after he was "crying".

This is my very favorite. I ~love~ it!

He looks so soft and cuddly here. Another favorite.

By the way, I really hate the way Blogger arranges photos. I always have spaces where I don't want them, and when I try to get rid of those spaces, sometimes I accidentally delete pictures. Ctrl + Z is my friend.

Photo

The other day, Andrew took one of those comatose naps. I took the opportunity to snap this photo!

Money in the mail?

If you get an envelope in the mail from Nielsen TV, do NOT throw it away. Open it up. This is the 2nd one I've received--the last one was maybe last summer or fall? I can't remember. I believe it was $5 last time, which I thought was awesome, but this time...$30?! I actually exclaimed, "Holy fucking shit and ass balls!" when I opened it up. All I have to do is fill out a survey--some kind of t.v. diary on what we watch in our household (um, ours will be pretty easy since we don't have cable--all we get is ABC, The CW, CBS, another crappy CBS channel, Fox, and PBS).

I did some searching online, and what Nielsen does is provide accurate research for the media companies. By sending cash, people really find the incentive to return the surveys. As a result, ratings are accurate and media companies know which programs to keep. I still have not found a story of someone getting $30, so maybe I'm just special? In more ways than one? Hopefully it's not just some stalker from Nielsen who wants to see my boobies. Cuz' he ain't going to get to see them.

I kid you not! The kicker, it arrived on St. Patrick's Day! Luck O' the Irish (of which I barely am)?!

Appointment update

My hubby met with the Physician's Assistant yesterday who informed him of the plan of action for his wrist surgery. They said the best way to go would be to put a metal plate and screws in there. The bad thing is, we have to wait until next Tuesday. Dr. H is a hand specialist, and although the injury is on DH's wrist, the PA said that if she had a family member needing this surgery, she wouldn't have anyone else do it but him. He is on vacation until next Tuesday, so that's the reason for the delay. However, the PA said there is a 12-15 day window after the injury to get the surgery done, so we're all good. She said they have to be careful because there's some crack on a joint and if they don't do the surgery exactly right, DH is at risk for arthritis because of something about a bone spur rubbing. I am not a medical expert, so I really don't know exactly what this means. They also said they have to rotate SOMETHING 15 degrees--DH could not remember what they had to rotate, just that something is offset. The good news is that he can have a removable splint after 3 weeks, so that will be nice. Apparently when they put a plate in, it makes it stronger and therefore easier to heal. The surgery will take approximately an hour-and-a-half, and I have taken off work that day.

Here is the CT scan of his wrist, for you medical gurus. You're looking at his arm from the side, palm down. You can see the fracture in the wrist, right before that "ball joint" thingie by the hand (I am so using improper jargon because I don't know the proper bone parts).

So, this is really going to suck...

Some of you already know and you can just ignore this if you do, but my hubby fractured his wrist in two spots on Friday. He was outside enjoying the nice weather with Andrew, and his nephew (he's 19) stopped by to say hi. Anyway, Andrew kept running over to the neighbor's yard, and DH brought him back for the third time. DH was making a beeline for the front door to take Andrew back inside, and slipped on some ice. We have a huge patch of ice in our front yard and DH's feet went out from under him. He naturally held Andrew up to protect him, but fell down -HARD- on his right hand, which happens to be his dominant hand. :(

Anyway, I get a call at work from my nephew who states he's taking my husband to the ER with a broken wrist. They have Andrew. I find out later that apparently my nephew couldn't figure out how to buckle the carseat so he wasn't even buckled in! My hubby was in too much pain to care, so that pisses me off (luckily, it's not far, but STILL!). DH's nephew is 19 and apparently invincible. He was only listening to my hubby, who was in tears and probably yelling to hurry up and get to the ER.

Anyway, they do x-rays. It is indeed fractured. In two different places. It's shattered on the top of the radius, and there' s a chip of bone off the ulna. It's pretty bad, and they can't just set it. They put it in a semi-hard cast and sling, and stated that the doc who could do the surgery was in surgery for the rest of the day so it'd have to wait until Monday. I called the Director of Nurses at my work (she has 30+ years of medical experience and I knew she'd have some kind of idea) and she said the fact that it looked cloudy on the x-ray was not good--it means that they basically have to reconstruct his wrist. They took a CT scan of it before he left so they'd have that done in preparation for next week's surgery. I told DH that only he would break his wrist on Friday the 13th. He replied, "Is it really? Oh great...."

He (my hubby) is super depressed aboout this. He likes to garden, bike, fish and do projects around the house--all things that require both hands. I am not going to be much help, working full-time, but I told him I'd do whatever I could.

Oh, and how is he, as a stay-at-home dad, going to change diapers? That's the hardest thing. He can pretty much carry Andrew if he has to, but this really means no more trips out. If Andrew takes off running (like he often does), it's going to be hard for him to run after him and get him into his arms quickly and safely. Plus, DH has SAD, which is seasonal affective disorder. He was so looking forward to spring, and now most of it is going to be ruined for him. I just feel so bad, and he wishes he could go back in time.

I am including a pic of the scene of the crime. See, our house faces north, and this part is always shaded by the overhang of the house. It is the last to melt. This snow basically turned to ice from being so old and then getting rained on and re-frozen. The ice is all bumpy.

Me as a toddler...

Okay, so my in-laws drive me nuts. Every time they see Andrew, they make a point of saying that he is "all daddy" and have never acknowledged that he looks like me too. He does get his blonde hair from DH, as well as his blue eyes (mine are blue, but more of a gray-blue), and his fuller lips. Anyway, my mom even says he is a mix of both of us.

So here I am, roughly Andrew's age. Please ignore the super scary clown overalls! Rachel noticed it when I put this on my Facebook. Not sure what my mom was thinking but this would have been 1981/1982 and maybe people were really into dressing their kids like that back then. :)

And here's Andrew; albeit, from last summer. His face has thinned out a bit since then and his hair got a lot longer (as I'm sure you've seen in more recent photos). Anyway, he was making his "big smile" face, which is when I think he looks the most like me. He's kind-of like me as a child, but more "albino". :D

Winter, walks, dragons, photo challenges, and cameras

This winter has been so dreary. So dreary that I've been really bad at taking walks outdoors. From November until now, I've probably only taken 7 walks outside. I'm embarrassed because there was a time that I was taking 4 mile walks 3-4 days a week! I want to get back there, but I really need nice weather. Just so you don't all think I'm a fatass, I have taken probably 20 mall walks. It's just that our mall stinks like nasty, greasy Chinese food and it bugs me. Our mall is also lame and really small and there are only so many turns I want to make.

Nevertheless, we did take a walk yesterday even though it was only about 40 (hey, 40 is warm for us these days!). Here is Andrew in his Croozer (it's a bike trailer that converts to a jogging stroller; a side note, I am pissed that Amazon didn't have that color when we ordered ours, but oh well).


This image is also part of my 365 Challenge--this one was yesterday's. I am going to take 1 picture every day for 365 days (a Flickr project). Today I'm on day 3. There is now a link in my sidebar if you would like to view this ongoing dealio. I won't bore you by posting every day's pic on my blog, but may share a few.

Oh, and I ordered a new camera to replace my 4 year old DSLR. I am getting a Canon Rebel XTi which is a 10.1 MP DSLR (the one I have now is 6.3). It's factory refurbished from Canon, which doesn't scare me in the least since my hubby ordered our HD camcorder and you couldn't even tell. In fact, some say that when you're getting a refurb, it is looked at much more closely than a new item. I ordered just the body because the 18-55mm lens I have now will be compatible. I am also ordering a 50mm 1.8 prime lens that will allow me to do some mean portraits. From the images I've seen online taken with this lens, the bokeh is amazing.

Bu-bye!!!

When it's time for Andrew to take a nap or go down for the night, I always have him say good-night to Daddy. He does so by waving to him with a big smile on his face. I then tell Andrew he's going to watch the fishies (referring to the Baby Einstein aquarium toy in his crib).

Today it was getting to be naptime, so I asked him if he wanted to watch his fishes and he started waving right away, to noone in particular. Hehe......

One a Two a Three to the Four...

Weekend plans....

I have a baby shower to attend tomorrow at 1:00. It's in the middle of Bumfuck Egypt, so that should be fun to find.

Other than that, I think the weather is supposed to be shitty tomorrow. It sucks that the two most beautiful days this week (yesterday and today) were spent at work.

I think I'm going to take the little guy for a walk tonight.

Okay, so a little bit about myself.

I feel as though I'm boring you all to death with my posts about Andrew. I can't help it--I have no life otherwise!

So here's my attempt at (hopefully not) putting you to sleep even more.

I work full-time at a nursing home as the HR representative. I also serve as assistant to the administrator (the Big Boss). He is an extremely serious gray-haired man who wears a suit every single day. The big, big boss (Corporate) tried to get him to dress down to ties many years back but was unsuccessful in his attempts. Thus, we have a serious-looking man whom the residents have confused as everything from a priest to a funeral director. He is awesome though--my boss. He will always listen first and then comment, and I have never heard him raise his voice. He gets sappy at times and when he talks to us staff about how much we mean to him, gets all teary-eyed. I've been here since October of 2004 and I love my job. I get my own office with a door that closes--I take advantage of this sometimes when I am doing paychecks (nothing more annoying than people trying to get their check early or breathing over my shoulder when I just want to get them done). I do interviews (love it; time goes by fast and I love interacting with new people), post-hires (after someone is hired, they come to my office to do paperwork--W-4, I-9, other forms for the state; drug testing), timecards (printing them out and distributing them to other department heads), and corrections (when people miss punches, which is oh, pretty much ALL the time). When someone has an injury, I handle all the paperwork for worker's comp. and assign limited duties to inujured employees. There are some other menial boring tasks I do--I won't get into them now.

So, that's my work life. I'm here 8-4 Monday through Friday and I have a system and it works for me. If anyone were to mess with my files, I'd freak! :)

I am the oldest of five children. It's me, my sister, and three boys. We were raised by my wonderful mother, whom I adore, and my psycho father, whom I have no contact with. To sum it up, he physically, verbally, and emotionally abused us, and my mom is really lucky to be alive. She filed for divorce in 2001--my dad didn't see it coming--the police staked the house out waiting for him to come home from work, then served both divorce papers and a restraining order. Of which my dad did not obey. After several violations in my small-town hickville little Minnesota city (stalking, mostly...also my dad coming into the house when he wasn't supposed to; one time he kept riding past her house on his motorcycle--it was my mom's birthday--the police stated that she couldn't prove it was him because he had a helmet on; nobody else had a yellow bike and a yellow helmet but him), my mom moved across the border to Wisconsin. My uncle is a cop in the town she lives in now and they have a big fat file on my dad in case there should be any issues. He hasn't bugged her at all since she moved to WI. A guardian-ad-litem was appointed, and after visiting with the two minors (at the time of divorce), she ruled that visitations were to be supervised only. My dad didn't show up to pick up my brother because he didn't need to be supervised. That was the end of that. I'd also like to add that his abuse was not fueled by alcohol--it was completely driven by power.

Nobody ever knew about the abuse as it was going on, because it all went on behind closed doors. We felt ashamed and therefore; never told anyone. The police were never called and no pictures were ever taken; therefore in the police department's eyes, it never happened.

My mom REALIZES now that she should have left a long time ago. She has apologized over and over for allowing us to live in that environment. What matters is that she DID leave and didn't go back to him.

The creep has tried to have contact with me (and my siblings); he sent me a Christmas card with a note, but I don't know this man! There was no affection ever shown, he didn't come to my band concerts--not even my final one senior year when I got the coveted scholarship; it was like this mean stranger lived in our house. He threw his kids around like they were worthless junk. He managed the food and money. My mom's mileage was documented by him and if she went a little bit out of her way on any day, she would be accused of cheating. He did not allow us to eat snacks or anything else without permission. We could have Saltines, but that was it. $70 a week was the money my mom was given weekly for groceries for a family of seven, gas for the car, and any other expenses. If she ran out of gas, she ran out of gas. A few times she had to walk back home from work because her car stopped on the way.

The good times were when he was away. We had 15 minutes after arriving home from school to party it up! We would be loud, play, kid around, and act like normal kids. As soon as the garage door opened, we would scatter to our rooms where we'd remain the rest of the night, only coming down for supper. If we did happen to watch a movie as a family, we were to be silent and still so as not to "misbehave".

His tool of choice was a leather weightlifting belt. It was thick and he wasn't afraid to put force into beating us with it. I would run--run around the pool table and he would chase me, yelling after me to just stop or it'd be worse. Eventually, I would give up and stop. Punishments could be for something as simple as playing too loud or making too much noise. We called each other names because he called us names, and we learned from him. He would throw us across the living room and pull us down the stairs by our hair. When my little brother was in kindergarten, the two of us were in the bathroom brushing our teeth before school. We must have made too much noise, because suddenly, he had Mike in his arms and was slamming his head against the door frame. They told the doctor he was fighting with his sister and that's how the injury occurred (he needed stitches). This was on my mom's birthday.

Anyway, I came out of this with no real "issues". I had migraines from the time I was 8, but otherwise I am a happy person. I look in the mirror sometimes and can't help but see the resemblance between my dad and me, and it just KILLS me sometimes, but I just tell myself that he was only the donor. My sister has been dealing with anorexia with bulemic tendencies, clinical depression (she used to cut herself), suicidal attempts, and post-traumatic stress disorder. She's been going to a counselor for 6 or so years now, and it seems to be helping.

As a mother, I do not know HOW someone could do this to his/her own child. To look that child in the eyes and hurt him--it just blows my mind. I am going to give Andrew this life I never really had. I am just so very lucky to have him. I squeeze him tight whenever I see or hear about tragedies involving children.

I will share more about my mom soon. I have a pic of her that I need to upload. She is writing a book and it is SO good. She has something like 300 pages done so far and has had a lot of people read it and give feedback, but the consensus is that it's really hard to put down! She is only up to 1996 now, so I'm hoping she can hurry up and finish it. Once you see her pic, you will never believe she could possibly have been a victim. She used to think he'd kill her if she left; she finally realized he'd kill her if she stayed too. I'm glad she got smart.

Introduce yourself!

In my LiveFeed, I see a lot of different visitors from many different places. Don't be a stranger! I want to know all about you and I would like to get your blog in my reader if you aren't already there! I already know who some of you are by the cities (ahem, Ms. Pompton Lakes, NJ?). I've put together a little poll for those of you who visit my blog. I promise I won't bite! :D

What is your first name?
How old are you?
Where are you from?
How did you find my blog?
What types of posts would you like to see more of?
What types of posts would you like to see less of?
Any other miscellaneous comments you'd like to leave with me?

Everything goes in the bathtub....

At least that's what Mr. Andrew man thinks! The other day when DH was relaxing in the bathtub, he had his laptop sitting on the floor. Andrew was going to drop it in the tub! He said he also wanted to drop my hair dryer (unplugged) in there, but he couldn't lift it up over the ledge all the way to drop it. I have found receipts, wipes, toothbrushes, hairbrushes, and just about anything else you can think of in my bathtub.

Oh, and the other day, he got ahold of the toothbrush holder (he is tall and can reach further and further onto the vanity). I found the holder, DH's toothbrush, and Andrew's toothbrush on the living room floor but could not find mine. I searched all over--in his room, in the plants, under the couch...finally I had an "ah-ha" moment. I opened the basement door and there it was, lying on the 2nd stair. Andrew loves to shove things underneath that door. I hope I don't need to stick a bag there to start collecting his offerings!

Oh, and I also found two spoons stashed behind the t.v. on the entertainment center. It reminded me of a squirrel burying his nuts for the winter.

A little bit sad...

I would have been 18 weeks today, and I woke up this morning realizing that. In the next 2 weeks I would have had my big ultrasound. I would have a nice-sized belly by now. It's so hard to think about, and now my hubby is in the camp that he doesn't want anymore kids ever. It's a little bit more than I can chew. If this baby had kept growing, then we'd have a sibling for Andrew, and he was okay with that. I am so happy with just having Andrew; I just keep thinking about what could have been.