Harper's Ferry

Our trip to Harper's Ferry. We drove to the National Park and took a short bus trip to the little town to walk around and look at all the shops, museums, and trails.

Happy Halloween!

So we've got my sister kenzie as a goth doll, aidan as elvis, sister bobbi jo as the lady from "the birds" and me as a 50's girl.

aidan was a trooper, he helped me hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters. we had a different turn-out this year, a better one than previous years. Although there were less kids, they were nicer kids- who actually said "trick or treat" and "thank you", and kids instead of teenagers that are too old to be doing this!

my little monkey

you can't turn your head for a second with a mobile child!! i was on a call this afternoon and turned around just in time to find the little munchkin climbing from a bench to a tote that was sitting on the floor! the video is from him doing it for the second time today when tim came home.

1 year and ~1 month

so i didn't quite make it to post for aidan's 1 year...it has come and gone so fast. we've had a lot going on the past few months plus my laziness of keeping up with the posts. 2 birthday parties (1 in PA and 1 in MD, which i will not do again), tim's mom had heart surgery (she is doing well), i started a new job (same company, different group). i actually don't even know my official title yet, but i'm in our homeland security group and have mostly been working w/ FEMA so far. aidan had his 1 year appointment and the doctor found a heart murmur. we've had it checked out (ekg, ultrasound) and it has been determined that it is what they call an innocent murmur. we'll have to go back and redo the tests when he turns 3. but as for now, his heart is anatomically correct and he's a healthy baby, just not allowed to scuba dive due to the murmur. i don't think we'll have to worry about scuba for a while. i'm hoping that he'll eventually grow out of the murmur, but if not, it's something that we'll have to deal with. he's been saying a few more "words" or his words that we know what they mean (dada, duck, dog, and of course jack). who's jack you ask? jack is a poster of jack lambert (70's steeler player) that hangs on the ceiling going down to our basement. for some unknown reason he is facinated by it. he says "hi jack" or waves bye to jack, points from where ever he is in the house and says "jack"....needless to say, i'm not the happiest about this because he has yet to say mama! his newest word is hello, which he pronounces heyyo. and to my amazement knows to lift the cell phone to his ear and say heyyo. i'm not sure if that's good or bad at this point!

Mobility

hanging w/ mammy

emptying the toy bins

please excuse the explosion of toys across the floor, but "fingers mcgettigan", a.k.a. "destructo" gets into everything and then throws it everywhere!! our living room has become aidan's room :)

but we are now mobile! it's aidan's second day of crawling. i can't describe the feeling of watching him achieve all of these milestones! learning to clap and doing it when you ask him to, picking out a toy (specifically his gator), and now having the ability to explore!

Unexpected Ride

I had an adventure of my own. Last Sunday evening, I started having terrible pain in my mid/lower back which radiated all the way around to the front. Now this has been happening since I've had Aidan, but each "episode" didn't last too long and it would always go away. I've also always related it to my epidural, because that seemed to be where the pain started. And the fact that they had to do it twice supported the idea that something was wrong. As time past, the pain got worse and the length of the episode grew. In the past 3 weeks it had happened 3 times and this time it wasn't going anywhere fast! So for about 2 hours I endured the pain until I could no longer. It was starting to affect my breathing and that's when I basically said to Tim, you gotta get me somewhere. The baby was already asleep, so we asked the neighbor(who happens to be an EMT) to come over and sit with him until Tim's parents arrived. He checked my blood pressure and pulse and basically said he thought it was a good idea to call the ambulance to take me to the hospital. I would get there faster and be seen quicker (or so I thought). So I've taken my first ride in an ambulance. It was quite embarassing having it pull up to your house, siren's on and w/ all of the nosey neighbors gawking at you. We were taken into the ER and the nurse came to check on me and said she would return with some pain medication....about 3 hours later when the doctor finally came in and the pain had subsided (w/ no pain medication ever making it to my veins) i described what had been going on. From what I explained the doc ruled it to be my gall bladder and ordered an ultrasound to verify. It was not an immediate surgery but it would have to be done. The ultrasound revealed not only was it my gall bladder, but my bloodwork showed I also had pancreatitis. So I had to be admitted and surgery would soon follow. That was 2 a.m. So off to my room I went, the whole time freaking out that I have a 10 month old to take care of! I will not write what terrible thoughts ran through my head! I'll cry if I even think about it! Monday morning came around after being poked and proded all night by nurses. I was visited by 3 doctors who all said I would be there for a few days until my enzyme levels went down. Finally around 5:00 that evening, the surgeon came in. Bless her heart, she went through all of the options, but the only one that I heard was there was no reason to do the surgery that night and that's what I opted for. I just wanted to get it over with and get home! So within a 1/2 hour, I was being wheeled to surgery. I remember going into the OR and the nurse saying she was going to give me some good drugs- and that she did. Next thing I know, I'm waking up to nurses talking to me. I don't even remember being wheeled back to my room or getting into bed (which I apparently did myself). I was able to go home the next afternoon and have been recuperating since. It was painful, but each day it got better and better. I'm not supposed to lift anything over 15 lbs. for 4 weeks, but that's really not happening considering I have a 25 lb kid! I just have to careful when I do pick him up. Unfortunately, I return to work tomorrow.

Which is another issue. Our lovely company policy is that you have to be out of the office for 5 consecutive days before short term disability kicks in...so they use your vacation and sick time for those five days, and since I just came back from a week's vacation, I didn't have too much left. So not only are all of my vacation and sick hours now used up, I ended up with 2 days of leave without pay. I'll never understand why that is a policy that is acceptable! An event that I cannot control and end up getting sucked dry for!

The good things that came out of this is hopefully my stomach issues will now be non-existent and we had great help with Aidan since Tim had to go back to work and I was unable to lift the baby. Tim's parents were able to help for a couple days, my dad brought my sister down from wed through friday and then from friday through sunday my mom and both sisters were here to help!

We Survived Our First Family Vacation!

A 9 1/2 drive to Myrtle Beach and an 8 hour drive back home, I was a little hesitant to do this, but I couldn't have asked for a better baby! He did excellent! No crankiness on either drive or throughout the week. He slept, ate, and entertained himself while we were in the car. And had a blast w/ everyone throughout the week! Here are a few pics from our vacation:



at ripley's aquarium trying to fish





his own personal pool on the beach


havin' fun in the sun

senor aidan (gotta love the "man-boobs")!