4/6 - Aiden's surgery

The past week has been ... an experience. Aiden's sleep is all off and it's completely wearing me out. On Saturday, we to Gymboree in the morning. I wanted to stop by a store afterwards but we had to wait for it to open. To buy me some time, I bought them a trip on the carousel at the mall. Eli chose the duck and Aiden chose the racing car. They had fun. My friend, Stephanie, came with me shopping last Friday and was helping me learn about style and dressing for my body type. It was very helpful and I wanted to get a dress that I looking at last week.

Aiden decided to make a "cave" for Bronco while I was getting lunch ready. It was too cute. He was showing me in the picture where Bronco is supposed to get in and out. 

On Saturday afternoon, we were supposed to go to the beach but my our friends got sick so we didn't go. Aiden was heartbroken because we had talked about for the last week. To compromise, I walked the boys down to the sand volleyball courts and brought our new sand toys and let them play for a while. Eli instantly started scooping up sand and trying to eat it. [Yes, I almost had a heart attack]

Within 10 min, he had all kinds of sand in his hair and all over him. I looked at my watch and started to figure out how we could do baths right away because I didn't want him in my house and getting it all sandy!

Aiden had a lot of fun making "tracks" and "roads." He also enjoyed me helping him make sand castles. Eli really just had fun pouring sand onto ... anything.

On Sunday, we did our normal routine. The boys wanted to get out the mechanical Thomas the Train set. Aiden was actually trying to show Eli how to use part of it which was cute. Aiden hasn't been napping at all really and has been going to bed extremely late most night for the past week. I'm praying it's due to a medication he is on but we won't know until a week or so after he stops it.

On Monday evening, I met Stephanie and her 3 kids for dinner at Chick-fil-a. It was very yummy (as always). Stephanie also graciously took Eli for the night so that I could just concentrate on getting Aiden to the surgery center on time the next morning.

Tuesday morning was Aiden's surgery. I woke him up at 5:30 and changed his diaper and shorts and we left. It was slightly raining out and he was pretty tired. 

We got to the surgery center and checked in. Aiden played in a bus activity center they had. He was begging for a snack and it was only 6:15/6:30am. I felt so bad for him. 

They promptly called us back to the room and gave Aiden a finger puppet, little water game, and some stickers. We then did lots of waiting. He was #3 of 3 children going and the first surgery started at 7:00am. They let the kids stay in their regular clothes. No one even checked his lungs until the anesthesiologist came in the second time and asked about asthma. I would have never guessed the Navy was more thorough than a civilian surgery center.

Aiden got bored pretty fast but then he started to people watch and was hearing all kinds of equipment going off in various rooms/curtained areas. He's laying on his blankies in the one picture.

I have no cuddle and recovery pictures with Aiden because he recovered slightly different than Eli. He was only gone for about 15 min and was very asleep when they brought him back. After a few minutes, he started to come around and did NOT like that. He was crying a moaning for a long while. Once his stats finally got to a certain point, they took the oxygen off him and let me hold him. He was very fussy. He pretty much cried for the next 30 min. I was kind of expecting that because Eli did the same thing. The requirements at the surgery center were much easier to meet than those at the navy hospital. Aiden had to drink and be awake. He did both but was crying a ton and telling me he was going to be sick and then coughing like he was going to get sick too. We got him a pan to get sick in but it didn't happen. The nurse finally brought in a DVD player for him and put Dumbo in (which he's never seen) to try and calm him down. He said the movie was scary and she fast forwarded it some. It was too funny. He didn't like the thunderstorm at the beginning of the movie. He refused to eat anything but they thought he would feel better if he ate something. Needless to say, after staying there for an hour and him not getting sick and not calming down (he was crying 'me want to go home.'), I finally took a gamble and just left. We drove home in lots of rain and were on the road by 9:15/9:30ish. On the way home he decided to eat some animal crackers which was good.

Since he was starving, we stopped at McDonalds so he could get some pancakes. He inhaled 2 of them and then we left to go get Eli. When we got in the car to go to his surgery, Aiden looked over and saw Eli's seat gone and asked where he was. It was too cute. Aiden was extremely sensitive during breakfast (both hearing and his whining).

Our next mission was to get Eli. Stephanie and Eli answered the door and Eli had a new hair-do. It was too cute. Aiden said he wanted spikey hair too so Stephanie got the stuff to do it. She got his hair wet and spiked it up and then Aiden decided he didn't want spikey hair any more and started crying. We fixed his hair and then he calmed down. He was very emotional. He did have fun playing upstairs with Kyleigh so I let him do that for a little bit.

When we got home, our neighbor, Jen, brought Aiden some new stickers. While he didn't seem that excited at the time, after some lunch and a much needed nap, he was very excited about them. The rest of the day went pretty well  and Aiden's moodiness calmed down.

After Eli's nap today (Aiden didn't take one but was nice enough to play quietly to let me sleep for 45 min), I took the boys and Bronco for a rollerblade and then dropped Bronco back off at home. I then took the boys to a playground they hadn't been to yet. It was win-win; I got to roller blade more and they were excited about a new playground. They had fun but wanted to keep playing once we got home. Eli even put on a helmet to ride a bike. It was backwards but it was still pretty smart.

The boys were using my exercise bands tonight. I was playing tug-of-war with them. I had Aiden working his pecs and lats! :) He was also pulling his potty around the house. I guess he was trying to find other uses for it since he clearly doesn't want to use it to pee in.

I finally decided to tackle the task of building a new track for the boys. The last one had just one bridge; this one has three! I'm getting pretty good! Aiden is actually starting to help out quite a bit too. Aiden is standing in front of another bridge. After we got it all done Aiden wanted to "build another" and he tried taking it apart. I asked him to let mommy keep this one for a few days since it was so nice and he agreed!  

And finally, the picture that Jess and Nini have been waiting for (I bet Brad won't mind either). Here is one of my new tops with my necklace. Look Jess - it has 3 layers!! I included the long shot and just the upper part. I have even more necklaces too! Today I wore a colored one. How fun. The boys just stare at them because they aren't used to seeing me with jewelry on. It's kinda fun.

I've stayed up way too late working on this. I love the little ticker on the far right though that shows how many people are looking at the blog and where they are from (city, state). I felt bad that people were looking and there was nothing update. Have a great rest of the week. Please keep little sensitive Aiden in your prayers and let his ears heal. They are draining quite a bit now and tomorrow I have to start putting Afrin drops in them which I know he won't like.