Thank Goodness Love Waits

Okay, so all I can say is, "Thank goodness love is patient and can wait." So very sorry Aaron that I haven't had the time to organize and post this entry until now.

Valentines this year was Aaron's project and he once again pulled off a very memorable and special day full of surprises. All I could pull off was making him chocolate covered strawberries. My dear friend Karen and her two kids came over Friday morning and we all made chocolate covered strawberries together for our two husbands. It was hard keeping the kids from wanting to eat them all while they were making them.

The rest of the weekend started with Aaron letting me know that the kids would be staying with my parents on Friday night of Valentine's weekend. (mom and da: y'all are amazing...thank you!) That alone could have been the one and only gift I received and I would have been ecstatic. Well, it wasn't. (side note: we then took the kids to Chuck-E-Cheese on Thursday night to celebrate Valentines with them.) I dropped the kids off at my mom's office Friday afternoon around 4:40 pm. I then drove to Aaron's work where our weekend began. Aaron played me the song "Dancing Queen" and told me that was the theme for the weekend. Therefore, everything we did had something to do with dancing or queens. I also received a scroll, because of course every queen has scrolls that she reads from, declared things in, and such. Inside the scroll where 11 games of blank 'hang-man' games. I would be playing hang-man to always reveal to me what our next adventure would be. I also drew different types of queen cards form card decks to help with the clues. The first word ended up being 'parlor' (a queen's palace has a parlor). We then drove to the restaurant Catfish Parlor for dinner. YUM! The second word was 'hearts' (for the 'queen of hearts'). One of my favorite candies are conversation heart candies. Aaron gave me a couple of boxes of them. Double Yum. After that came the word 'Shakespeare' which led us to the Wells Branch public library where they were serving chocolate fondue and having a showing of the movie "Shakespeare in Love". After that came the word 'regal' (because queens are regal). We then went to the Regal Cinema theatre and watched the movie "He's Just Not That Into You". We wrapped up the evening with me surprising him with the chocolate covered strawberries we had made.

Saturday morning I got to sleep until 9:00 am. Awesome! My word for this on the scroll was 'beauty rest'. I then was awoken to breakfast in bed which involved a cinnamon roll donut from my favorite donut shop. I also had an envelope to open on my tray. Inside was a gift certificate from a lady's business who does chores for people. Aaron had gotten me a gift certificate to have 72 loads of laundry done. That came to about 6 loads of laundry every 2 weeks for the next 6 months that I can have done. He knows that with 3 kids that is the most time consuming chore that I have to do. My word for that on the scroll was 'servant'. After I got ready for the day I played hang-man again and revealed the word 'protector' (a queen is surrounded by people to protect her). We then went to see the movie "Taken" because Liam Neison is his daughter's protector. After the movie my hang-man word was 'dairy' for the restaurant Dairy Queen. Yes, it's not the most glamour place, but it does have one of the best foods ever: ice-cream blizzards. I love ice-cream blizzards but never go to get them because I would want to order the biggest one they have and eat the whole thing for my meal which is not the best example for my kids. But, Aaron let me do just that. I did order a side salad and ate that first before I indulged myself. After that I played hang-man again and my word ended up being 'hip-hop' (the style of dance). Aaron then did a very brave and selfless thing. He took us to the dancing school downtown for a hip-hop dance class. I love dancing but Aaron is not so comfortable with the idea. It was sooooo fun, yet sooooo hard. There are a lot of steps involved and a lot of work involved to get your body to loosen up and let go yet be coordinated enough to move with style. Anyway, it was a great experience. I think the most interesting thing to people in the class was not our lack of dancing ability but our matching "I love you" and "I love you too" bright red shirts". It was then home to get ready for our big finale.

We were going to an event called "Second Chance Prom" put on by another church, but attended by some friends at our church. My mom still had my actual high school prom dress so I squeezed into it, and tried to attempt to pull off some type of up-do with my hair. Aaron once again pulled out the scroll where I played to reveal the word 'carriage'. Aaron had signed us up to take a horse drawn carriage ride in downtown Austin. It was leaving from the Four Season's hotel. He dropped me off at the entrance and attempted to go park the car himself. Oh, and did I mention that my parents let us borrow their red T-bird car to drive around in for Valentine's Day! Way cool! Anyway, while I was waiting inside for Aaron to show up I started to hear a lot of commotion. Suddenly a lot of men in dark suits starting coming through the doors and as I looked at them I noticed that they were wearing ear pieces - like the secret service would wear. Just as I was taking all of this in former president, Bill Clinton, walks by me in a bright shirt, light blazer, nice jeans and cowboy boots. What?!?! He stopped to say hi to a woman and her daughter who obviously new that he was there and asked for a picture with him. I just stood there dumbfounded with my camera case on my shoulder. He then quickly entered an SUV with a lot of the secret service men and then a motor-cade of several other SUVs full of them all drove off. At that point, still in shock, I look across the covered entry to see our good friend and Aaron's business partner Steven Drachenburg and a date of his walking up to the hotel. It seemed like I was just running into everyone. They stopped to talk to me and then he revealed that he and his date were there to ride in the carriage with us. Oh my, what a fun surprise. His date didn't know about the carriage until then and got surprised as well. Aaron then showed up to have the valet park our car because he had no luck. We took pictures and then had a fun ride through downtown. On our ride some other people from our church rode up beside us in their car and waved. This time it really was random and not a planned meeting by Aaron. After that we drove to the 'Second Chance Prom' where I played my last hang-man. I was sure being a four letter word it would be 'Prom', but Aaron through me for a loop and the word ended up being 'Ball' because that's what queen's give at their palaces. We had a great time with Monte and Lori Poppe and Chad and Kara Dennis along with some of their friends. We ate good food and danced to really fun old-school songs. We finally got to my parent's house to pick up the kids at 10:00 pm. We just got Aaris and Titus so that we wouldn't have to mess up Skylyn's sleeping pattern. Since our church's baby dedication was the next morning and my parents would be attending, they just brought her to us then.

Like I said, it was a non-stop, fun at every turn Valentine's Day...or as we call it around here "Aaron and Jessica Day".

Cut

I still can't believe that it's been done, but it has. Today Aaris got her hair cut! Ever since Skylyn's been born I haven't had time to really do Aaris's hair. It needed a lot of combing and fixing and I just didn't have the free hands or free time. Aaron was getting tired of having to work at getting the tangles out of her hair after bath and kept mentioning cutting Aaris's hair. We were going to get it cut in Lubbock by our dear friend Christy Taylor, but we didn't make it to Lubbock. So, yesterday, I called my hairstylist and got an appointment. We got Titus's hair and Aaris's hair cut. I must say that I wanted to badly just change my mind and walk out of the salon. But, instead I just cried hard. I loved Aaris's long hair! She did have enough hair to donate it to Locks of Love to give to another little girl who needs a wig. She looks adorable, but I will miss the long curls and the up-do's. But, as Aaris said when I was crying, "Mom, it will grow back." I must say that she looks very grown up now. She'll be starting school in the Fall and now she looks like she should. My little girl is truly growing up too fast right in front of me.

Four and More

Today Skylyn turned 4 months old! She's growing faster and faster every day. It's been a big day for her. We took her for her well check early this morning. She did great. She weighed 11 lbs (5-10%) on the dot with her cast still on. She measured 22.5 inches long (5%) which is a 2 1/2 inch growth since her 2 month check up. And her head circumference is right on track with the rest of her body measuring in the 5%. She had been sleeping through the night from 9:00 pm until 7:30 am for about a month and a half. Then, the last two weeks hit. So, while we were all sick, including her, she decided to start a growing spurt. She's been waking me up during the night to eat and eats not her normal every 3-4 hours during the day, but instead every 2 hours or less. Today she got one vaccine shot in the leg and one oral vaccine.

Then, this afternoon I took her to get her cast removed. (Thanks Shawna Murrie for letting Titus nap and Aaris play at your house.) I don't have a tiny baby cast to keep because they actually peeled this cast off. Skylyn was smiling through the whole thing. She however did not smile while they had to hold her foot down in several different positions to get more x-rays done. The doctor said that the bruising she still has is very common and that the x-rays show healing. Therefore, Skylyn is good to go. She could be sore for a couple of days since her leg and foot haven't moved in 3 weeks. Along with the soreness of the vaccine shots, she might be on some baby Tylenol, but so far so good. Oh, and when I was leaving the bone doctor's office I noticed that had a digital scale. So, I set Skylyn down on it. With her clothes and diaper on, but cast off, she weighed 10 lbs 6 oz!

We will be celebrating her big day with a bath tonight. She's only had sponge baths since her cast was on.

P.S. remember I have no battery for my real camera yet, so I had to use my phone camera.

At doctor's and just got cast off
Her knee cap was a little red and her foot was red and purple, but I'm sure it felt good to get be able to move her leg and foot again.
Styling at 4 months old (thanks Howards for the borrowed clothes)

Giving out smiles

This 'n That

We have been really busy and really sick for the last couple of weeks, so I haven't had any time to blog. Two weekends ago we spent Saturday morning having a huge garage sale that was a combination of our stuff and my parent's stuff. It was a great success. We then spent that afternoon loading up Aaron's dad' truck that we borrowed, my parent's trailer that we borrowed and our Explorer with stuff to de-clutter and stage our house and drove it out to storage. We have dear friends that live out past Lockhart that are graciously letting us take over their storage building with all of our stuff. They invited us to stay and enjoy dinner with them. It was wonderful. They are truly a precious family and it was a blessing to spend time with them. Then, that Sunday Aaron took one more load out there and we took all of the kid's backyard play toys to my parent's backyard. The rest of the week we spent time thoroughly cleaning the house because last Friday we put our house back on the market. I also spent that week packing. Last Friday the kid's and I left town for an 11 day road trip. We were going to San Angelo to see my grandmother (my mom's mom), Lubbock to see my aunt and uncle and cousins and friends, Clovis, New Mexico to see Aaron's grandparents (his dad's parents), and finally to Midland to see Aaron's aunt and uncle. Well, we made it to San Angelo. Aaris and Titus were getting over colds but then suddenly Friday night Skylyn and I caught colds. Mine was all nasal stuff and Skylyn's had turned into a bad cough. After talking to everyone we were suppose to travel and see, we decided to head home to all get better. Good thing we did. I took the kids to the doctor Monday morning and it turns out that Titus had an ear infection, Aaris had a double ear infection, Skylyn had developed bronchiolitis from her cold and I had a sinus infection. Then, suddenly Tuesday morning I developed a terrible case of mastitis. I must give a shout out to Christy McDonald for coming over and helping me with my kids until my mom could show up to take care of us all. I'm finally feeling a great deal of recovery from the mastitis, but the sinus infection is still ragging on, so I guess I'll be seeing the doctor in the morning for that. Since we were all back home and the kids have all started to really recover, we thought we would take advantage of the great weather and time with daddy. Yesterday we packed our lunches and headed to the San Antonio Zoo. Except for a yucky traffic jam due to construction on I-35 in downtown San Antonio, we had a fantastic time. The kids loved seeing all of the animals. We had some real treats like being right by the window when the two hippos went swimming by, stopped right in front of us and came up to take a breath. The lion's also roared for us. Lots of fun. I unfortunately discovered that I left my battery and battery charger at my grandmother's house in San Angelo, so I wasn't able to take any photos. Then today we went to our church class's picnic at the park event and had a great time playing and fellowshipping. And, finally our realtor held an open house for us this afternoon and it sounds like we got some good activity. So, it has been a crazy couple of weeks, but we all love each other still and are starting to get our health back, so what else can we ask for.

And, since I don't have any pictures from the past two weeks, I just included some of my favorite random pictures:

First Cast

Skylyn in her hospital gown in the ER
Skylyn still being sweet even with a cast (sitting up)

Skylyn laying down

Skylyn's cast

Skylyn's cast and cast free leg

Never thought that my baby would be the first to break a bone and get a cast, but due to her mommy, that is the case. On Tuesday morning, Feb. 17, around 8:45 am, still in my pajamas and socks, I had just finished changing Skylyn's diaper when I heard the kids playing with the gate at the bottom of the stairs. They were knocking it down. I came to the top of the stairs (Skylyn's room is upstairs) and told them to stop. They were going to scratch the walls or floor. Aaris then started to try and put the gate up, but wasn't being very successful. I became impatient and decided to walk down the stairs and help her. As I got closer to the bottom of the stairs my socks slipped on the stairs and caused my feet to slip out from underneath me and threw me backwards with my feet flying over my head. Skylyn went flying out of my arms. I was helpless and terrified. I picked myself up and went grabbing for Skylyn. I had no idea where or in what condition I was going to find her. She was lying on her back facing me on the hardwood floors at the bottom of the stairs and not taking a breath because she was trying to cry so hard. I picked her up and started screaming, "What have I done to my baby!?!", over and over again. I call a number on the phone but by the time someone picked up I couldn't remember who I had dialed. Skylyn was screaming and I couldn't hear. After yelling in the phone and asking several times who this was I finally heard Aaron trying to talk to me. I had to tell him what happened. All I wanted to do was throw Skylyn in the car and take her the the ER. While I was talking to Aaron, Skylyn eventually calmed down. I had grabbed a cool rice pack out of the freezer and stuck it on the back of her head. Aaron told me to just watch her for awhile since she had calmed down and I didn't see a gash or huge knock on her head. I held her with the cool rice pack for awhile. Aaris had disappeared right after Skylyn's fall. She had now returned with a colored picture for Skylyn and at the top she had written, "You are a star" because she thought Skylyn was brave for calming down so quickly after her fall. Before the fall Skylyn was just about ready to take her morning nap anyway, so by now she was getting very tired. I laid her down in her bed and called my sister-in-law who was an ER doctor but couldn't get a hold of her. I then called my brother-in-law (her husband and Aaron's brother), Alan, who is an ER doctor. He asked me questions and then told me to keep waking her up every 30 minutes or so to make sure she could be woken up. He also told me to feed her soon to make sure she could tolerate it. Finally, I needed to make sure she didn't start vomiting. I did all of this. As the day went on she was still fussy and was starting to not eat well. She wanted to eat, but then would start crying so hard that she would stop. So, after calling the pediatrician and having them tell me she needed to go to the ER, and after my mom telling me that I really should make sure she is okay, and my mother-in-law saying that it would be nice to just know that she would be okay, and my own conscience not at complete peace, I took Skylyn to Dell's Children's Hospital ER. (Thanks so much Shawna Murrie for keeping Aaris and Titus for me!) I got to the hospital around 4:30 pm. They had a little trouble finding her pulse with their 'glow-light' monitor because they put it on her left foot's big toe, and her feet are tiny. After that I got visited by the Child Protective Serves. That was a very hard thing to go through. We finally got to see a doctor. He felt her tummy and looked to make sure all of her arms and legs were moving. He felt Skylyn's head and said he felt some swelling and a little softness on the left side of her head above her ear. It could be a skull fracture, so they needed to do a CT scan. Skylyn screamed the whole time since she was strapped in and her head held tightly in place to keep it from moving. Right afterwards she fell asleep in my arms. Aaron's mom and Aaron had come to stay with us at the hospital and my mom was on the way. It was nice to have them there while we waited. The doctor returned with good news that there was no skull fracture. He released us around 7:30 pm and told me to just give her children's Tylenol for the swelling and pain. Thanks for Aaron's dad who had picked the kid's up from the Murries, Aaris and Titus were in bed by the time we got home.

So, then comes Wednesday. That morning Skylyn's foot tapped a chair while I was trying to squeeze past it to sit down with the kids for a morning snack. She cried like crazy, but I just figured she was overly irritable from being sore from the fall and from waking up early from her morning nap. Then, right after lunch I changed her diaper and sat on the floor in her room to play with her and Aaris. I stood her up because she normally likes to do that for a bit during play time. She wouldn't bare weight at all and just screamed for a couple of minutes even after I sat her back down. I then put the two incidents together in my head and decided to take her socks off and look at her feet. Her right foot was all swollen and a little discolored. I called the pediatrician and made an appointment. My dad had back surgery on Feb. 3 and is just now getting back to work for half days as he recovers. He only works the mornings but wanted to come by and see me since he knew I was emotionally upset from the fall. He was so kind to stay and watch Aaris and Titus for me while I took Skylyn to the doctor. I just popped in a movie for the kids and he was able to lay down on the couch. At the doctor they took x-rays of her foot, leg and hips. The doctor said she thought she saw a fracture in her foot but wanted to consult their bone specialist intern. He was gone for the day, so I had to wait until this morning to see what he had to say. The doctor called me back this morning and said that the intern said he saw a fracture and wanted to send me to a pediatric bone specialist. They might want to do a full body scan to see if there were any other breaks since I have no clue how Skylyn hit the floor. So, off we went this afternoon to see the specialist (Thanks Karen Shelton for keeping Aaris and Titus for me!). They took one look at the x-rays and said that she had definitely broken her bone (first meditarsol) and would need to be put in a cast. For most adults, they would put a half cast on (below the knee and over the foot), but since babies have such tiny appendages a half cast would slide off of Skylyn and defeat the purpose of a cast. Therefore to make sure the cast will stay on an do it's job, they have to put a full leg cast on. Skylyn's goes all the way up to her diaper. Most bigger kids and adults have to wear casts for at least 6 weeks, but since babies heal so quickly, Skylyn will get her cast off in 3 weeks. The bone specialist then just squeezed all over Skylyn's arms and legs to see if he felt anything or saw a painful reaction on Skylyn. He must not have felt anything since we didn't get a full body scan.

It has been a hard couple of days. Physically I'm sore. I have a big bruise on my tailbone and a scrape on my arm and my right leg hurts to pick up. Emotionally I'm spent. It's hard to deal with the fact that I dropped my baby. It's hard feel like doctor's might be thinking that I purposely harmed my child. It's just really hard to see my baby in pain. I'm starting to grow a little numb to the whole thing. I know I still feel guilty because all I want to do is eat. I'm figuring that is just my way of trying to push the guilt down back inside of me instead of dealing with it. So, until I completely deal with it, you all will know how guilty I really feel by my growing waist size. :) But, in all seriousness, I just keep coming back to praising God. He knew that fall was going to happen. He knew that I was not going to be able to hold my baby and keep her safe. He then did it for me. He kept His hand on her when I couldn't. God didn't let her fall first on her head or neck. He let her fall in a way that wouldn't critically injury her. And, for that I praise Him.

Aunt Visits

My Aunt Betty Ann (my dad's sister) came to visit my grandmother last week. Since my grandma lives in Buda, we got to see her as well. On Monday, they came to our house and then on Tuesday night we went to my parent's house to all have dinner together. I took pictures when they were here at our house. Skylyn gave smiles away to both my Aunt Betty Ann and my grandma. And, the kids giggled at and loved on their sweet Valentines presents from my grandma.

Dad's Birthday

After the U.T. Basketball game on Jan. 31, we went to Rudy's Bar-B-Q to celebrate my Dad's birthday. My grandma(my dad's mother), my mom, my sister (Hattie) and Skylyn also joined us. It was good eat'n. Aaris had also helped me make a cake for my dad. Titus and Aaris had fun helping put the candles on the cake, helping my dad blow out the candles, and then taking the candles off. The rest of us just had a good time eating the cake.