Chain mail is not the best gift

I said in another post that I’m going to get dh a chain mail glove for Christmas for cutting off part of the end of his finger. After looking around at what they are worth, I can definitely promise him encouragement to be more careful instead . $169 for a glove, a glove. Yup, it’s decided, he gets hockey socks. I can’t imagine paying that kind of money for him to not nip his fingers. Oh, and while you might think that is callous because it is his finger, he even said so himself that he doesn’t want one at that price. Plus, his finger wasn’t all that mangled, it’s healing quite well too.

I’m almost done all my Christmas shopping. Today was an easy day as I had manufacturer vouchers for $91 to replace some recalled toys, so it’s a cheaper Christmas now because of that. The girls are done, with the exception of a few small, cheap stocking stuffers Sweet Pea isn’t getting much but what was left over from the manufacturer’s voucher as a 3 month old doesn’t need anything yet (that and we have a ton of stuff for him).

I think what we need for Christmas is a Mac. I am so sick of my pc trouble it’s unbelievable. I realize mine is 2 years old, and that’s old for pcs, but it’s ridiculous that the sound card may already be crapping out. If I try and play any sound, whether it be a video or an mp3, the sound cuts in and out. So annoying to try and watch anything, or listen to music on the pc. Thankfully our new DVD player plays mp3s so I’m not completely out of luck in this room, but then I’m stuck for the great videos that people send through email. I gotta go open this baby up.

Shoot up today

No, that’s not an endorsement to go to your local heroin dealer, it’s the events that occurred today in Sweet Pea’s legs. He had some major shots today and is in a bit of a drugged sleep from infants acetaminophen. The poor guy.

I’m seriously confused though. I’m so sick of the internet’s conflicting arguments regarding vaccinations. I truly cannot believe that is a big government conspiracy to hide the nastiness of vaccinations as it would harm the government through the health care system more than the gain of pharmaceutical endorsement. But I can believe that pharmaceutical companies have their own best interests at heart, and not that of the infant they are vaccinating. It’s just a business fact, cold, heartless business. But is it true?

The confusion lies in the MMR vaccine. The mumps, measles and rubella vaccination. Locally, we have had 74 cases of the mumps, yes, 74 cases, where they are vaccinating college kids from ages 17-24 because from this age group, the likelihood that they received a preschool booster that is now recommended is very slim. My confusion stems not from a possible future occurrence of the diseases, but the possible link of the MMR shot to autism. Please note I said ‘possible’, meaning I have no clue so don’t use my blog as testimony for you to not immunize your child, do your own research.

My mother, God Bless her, watched Oprah (yes, I’m advertising only for a moment, remember it as it won’t happen again ) when she had on Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete, this show. It, frankly, made her a bit paranoid about Sweet Pea as she knew his first shots were coming up. That same night, she had a nightmare about Sweet Pea developing autism immediately after the vaccination. While I’m a vaccine advocate normally, this is a serious allegation and the link’s coincidence is phenomenal. Does it cause it? Well according to the nurse that gave him his shots today there is no proven link, but she did encourage me to do my own research as I have time to decide what to do. I found her encouragement a very respectful gesture considering she is a health nurse and she is very much for vaccinations, but still respected me and my own opinions and decisions enough to give that recommendation. She also nailed me with a dozen questions regarding adoption so I think we’re even .

It seems I have a bit of reading to do. Wish me luck.

I know exactly what to get dh for Christmas

A beautiful new chain mail glove, I think he’d really like that.

Every year he goes a huntin, without fail.  And every year, he nicks his finger here or there and has even cut himself pretty good.  It’s actually become a joke in our family that the reason there are even bandages on the main level of our house is because dh comes in the house from carving a deer in the garage, calling my name, asking me to bring him a bandage.  I learned to just keep them by the sink so I don’t have to go far.  I have just recently had to replenish them.

Last night was no exception, besides the fact that he was out there fairly late, well, not late by most standards, but it was dark out, so not a normal time for him to be butchering.  I was reading in bed at about 8:30pm and hear the back door open.  He comes to the stairs and calls up for me saying he needs me.  I just roll my eyes wondering what he’s done now.  He usually waits for me and almost brandishes his wounds to show them off or something, I’m not sure.  This time, he didn’t wait for me, but went straight to the sink.  I thought it odd, but he’s cut himself deep before, it must be bleeding, I thought.

I walk over to the sink where he is and he says that he’s cut part of the end of his finger off.  Of course my mouth hung open and then he showed me.  Sure enough, he’s gouged the side of his left index finger and taken part of the nail with it too from the last knuckle at an angle across his nail bed.  I gasped audibly as it was nasty to see.  What’s weird is I can see anything, operations, death, deer guts, but to see my husband’s finger part missing grossed me right out.  I even swore.

I ran upstairs and got the first aid kit, finding of course that it was seriously lacking in essentials like good gauze and tape.  We bandaged it up as well as we could, using scotch tape, and kept it elevated.  It bled through the gauze almost immediately.  The stupid guy tried to insist on just bandaging it up and going back to carving the deer.  He has a point in that any exposed meat will turn black and be done with, but my God man, you’ve gouged your finger and have had to go search for the missing piece to bring it with you to the clinic.  We put the piece in a bag, inside a bag of ice to see if the Dr. could sew it back on.

At 10:00 pm dh arrives home from the local urgent care clinic with a bandage on his finger that looks as if they replaced his finger with a giant white light bulb on the end of his hand.  They could not sew the piece back on, mainly because of the nail, but also the angle of the cut made the edges thin which would make the sutures pull out instead of holding them together.  Plus the fact that he was cutting up meat makes infection highly possible.  He was given the light-bulb gauze treatment, a paper bag full of more gauze, tape, gloves and a topical antibiotic.

Guess where he is now.  It’s been an entire night, enough for the finger to start really throbbing, and he’s back out there, butchering the deer.  I hope his other fingers stay intact.

The cat-napper

I’m losing my mind.  He’s up there, crying, again, and when did he go down and crash?  20 minutes ago.  Yup, a mere 20 minutes ago and he thinks he should be up again.  Yet if I were to get him up he’d be a cranky ass and want to be held constantly.  Good thing I am way more stubborn.

Both my girls were fairly good nappers.  2 hours was about right, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but never did they feel like they should be up in 20 minutes.  Dh stayed home yesterday for reasons unknown and got a taste of what my day is normally like.  He was a bit shocked to say the least, and understood why I get very little done on a normal day.  It’s hard to get going on something only to be interrupted very soon after beginning.  Not just because you can’t leave a baby alone for a bit to do something, i.e. potty, but to get ironing done yesterday I had to let him cry for quite a while.  I’m a CIO kinda girl though, although I don’t recommend it for the faint of heart nor the AP.  He doesn’t puke, he doesn’t get mental/crying, he does the hard cry for about 5-10 minutes max and then does a bit of the pathetic-cry because he’s tired, sleeps and then the cycle could start again, or he’ll sleep for a long period of time like he’s supposed to (2-3 hours).  Yeah, I get that every baby is different in their needs, but when he’s crying out of bed, or crying in bed, I get more done and keep much more sane when he’s crying in bed.

Don’t get me wrong, he doesn’t cry constantly, I’m just talking about when he’s really tired, when he doesn’t get those longer naps.  He’s actually a good baby.  Ok, wth does ‘good’ baby really mean?  Does my neighbours colicky baby next door mean he’s ‘bad’?  I really hate the term but that’s how everyone asks of him.  Is he good?  No, he’s an evil little coniver that I think will grow up to steal everyone’s paper clips.

A bit of a dilemma in this house.  Bing and Punk have been together in the same room since Sweet Pea arrived in September.  It hasn’t been great, that’s for sure.  Punk needs a lot less sleep than Bing and it shows.  She keeps her up at night and then wakes her earlier than she wants, it’s becoming a vicious cycle.  And the mess, who knew 2 girls could make such a mess in 1 room with such little floor space!  It’s quite a small room so I don’t blame them for having trouble putting away their stuff, but it’s become pretty ridiculous.  So we’re now deciding whether they should bunk together or not.  The initial idea was dh would build them bunk-beds if we found they could room together.  Now we’re not so sure.  If we put the question to them, it comes back mixed.  Punk wants her own room and Bing wants to share.  Ironic isn’t it?  We want them to share but not at the expense of Bing’s sleep or sanity for that matter as her sister is not near the neat person she is.  But if we separate them, that means dh would have to clean out his office and it’s unreal.  3 desks, 2 book shelves and junk all over the floor and in the closet means the rest of the house will look like the dump puked everywhere.  Dh is famous for clearing things out and then leaving those things somewhere else for someone else to pick up.  I stopped being his maid a long time ago so when he ‘cleaned his closet’ a few years ago and dumped all the clothes on the floor immediately in front of the closet on my side, I kicked it all into the corner and there it has sat for 2 years.  Yes, it is still there.  The difference is, is if this stuff piles up somewhere I won’t hesitate to throw it to the curb, and each time he brings it in, in a huff of course, and piles it somewhere else, it’ll get turfed again.

God I hope they continue to share a room .

I love baby feet!

I absolutely love baby feet. They are #1 with a close second being baby bums, so fat and squishy!

Like who wouldn’t love something so cute! Of course this post is about Sweet Pea. I’m in awe of how much he’s grown and how well he fits into our family. It’s a different thing this adoption. We weren’t infertile, we weren’t desperate to have kids as we have 2 beautiful girls, but we wanted to add to our family. It just feels so right having him in our lives. I can’t explain how easy it was to just adopt.

I’ll explain that. Since we’ve started this journey, way back when, we’ve had quite a few comment about how great we are for doing this, and a lot of questions about how we can! I mean people have actually asked, without meaning to sound callous, “how can you love someone else’s child?”. Yes, my jaw dropped, but this person is quite ummmm….. socially inept really, so it came as no surprise whatsoever to hear those words. But she’s not alone in her thoughts as she isn’t the only one that felt that way, she just didn’t beat around the bush asking as most people did. Comments like, “that’s really brave of you”, and “wow, is there something wrong with him then because of his (birth) mom?” (word ‘birth’ is my words so as not to confuse you with people thinking I suck as a mom ). Those are code for, “how can you love someone else’s child?”. I don’t want that to sound like every well meaning person is callous about adoption as there are many who use those phrases and don’t mean the “how can …”. I just can tell with someone’s tone, mannerisms, etc that they cannot believe we would take someone else’s child.

I often wonder why people ask that kind of question, do they think of these children as another person’s cast offs or what? I think it is the best way to add to the family when the mom has a history of fertility issues, pregnancy issues, or post-partum depression, as I had. We could not imagine me getting pregnant again and having those horrible hormones surge through my body like that and turn me into a bigger basket case than I am now.

I just can’t imagine our lives without him now. I did this with my girls too, it took me a bit, but I slowly fell in love with them. I wasn’t one of those women who could look at my child all slimy with afterbirth and feel immediate bonding. No, it took me a while, especially for Punk because my PPD started so soon after her birth, which I think affected our bond at first. And it’s been the same with Sweet Pea, but I love feeling it grow.

I just have to look at those feet and know ….. he’s ours. I can’t wait to add more .