As most of you know, Brian had to go out of town for work for the first part of this week. It was the first time that the boys and dogs and I had been in the apartment without him. I learned that people tend to stop and say hello when you're out with two dogs with a 2 year old next to you and a 2 month old in a Snuggli carrier. Common response: "You look like you have your hands full!" In many ways, the days without Brian went better than expected. It was much easier than expected to balance the three schedules (Norm, John and the dogs). The days went by much faster than I expected. I didn't miss my computer time as much as I expected (I went to bed earlier instead).
Of course, I had to go to bed earlier as I wasn't getting much sleep. Pauli has not been doing well at all. She's been miserable--despite her "doggie Prozac." She had started to have accidents in the apartment on a regular basis--despite the fact that I was taking her out every 2 to 3 hours. This is a dog who used to go to bed at 6:00PM and easily made it until the next morning. Now I was having to take her out several times during the middle of the night--despite the fact I had taken her out before bed at 10PM and was limiting the amount of water she was drinking.
It's amazing how much you learn about your neighbors when you're wandering around with your dogs in the middle of the night or the early morning hours. I didn't realize how many of our neighbors stay out until the wee hours. There's nothing like standing in your pajamas with a roll of paper towels cleaning up a puddle of dog pee in the hallway while your neighbors get home in their mini skirts and high heels to make you feel old. Oh well.
Dragging Pauli out so often was miserable for me and for her and for the boys. The only happy one was my other dog, Zoe--she loves the extra trips outside and the treats on return. I've been giving them both treats each time that Pauli has a successful potty break outside in an attempt to make Pauli happy and motivated to go outside to use the bathroom.
Pauli (in a rare perky moment) hanging out with Norm.
Finally on Thursday I took Pauli back to the vet. She was way too pathetic to just be "unhappy" or "anxious." She acted like we were torturing her every time we made her stand up and go outside. She moved REALLY slowly on the stairs like it hurt her to move. She was loosing weight because she wasn't eating well. The only way we knew she needed to go out was that she would make a strange keening sound. It was so pathetic. They did another urine analysis and a blood scan. They found that she had signs of a urinary tract infection and an underactive thyroid. So now Pauli is on three meds--doggie prozac, antibiotic and thyroid medicine. Hopefully all this pill popping will do the trick and we will get our happy Pauli back. I miss her terribly. She is not herself at all in her current state.
The other reason I needed to nap is that John has some sort of virus and has been running a high fever off and on for the last 48 hours. So he has been waking up with his fever. I spent 3 nights up a LOT between nursing Norm, cleaning up Pauli's accidents (luckily the carpet in our apartment appears to be designed NOT to show pee stains--the pee literally disappears), taking Pauli and Zoe outside, and comforting John. Hopefully nights will get better soon.
On a positive note, Brian is home and we are enjoying some fun quality time together. He and John were having a wonderful time tonight pretending to be animals. I should have videotaped it, but didn't. I will get a video and share it sometime soon.
John in his Chic-Fil-A Cow hat.
John decided that Norm needed to wear the cow hat too.
On another happy note, the boys and I made our first trip to our new pediatrician on Thursday for Norm's 2 month checkup and for John's fever. We all really liked the pediatrician and her office staff. Everyone was VERY friendly. The nurse was nice enough to get me some info about mom groups in the area and the name and number of a person on the staff who has a daughter who is a stay-at-home mom of 2 young children. John got his first lollipop (cherry, sugar free) and LOVED it. That made him smile which made the doctor happy. Norm weighed in at 11 lbs 10 ozs--and is sticking strong around the 50%ile for height and length. He's still near the 10%ile for his head. I guess he's got my little peahead.
Norm--2 months old!
I noticed that Norm tends to look to one side more than the other and asked the doctor about it. I was worried that he had the shortened neck muscle thing that I hear so much about these days. She said that he doesn't have any visible signs of that, but he is getting a flat spot on one side of the back of his head--so we're giving him lots of tummy time to try to even him out. Lucky Norm! He doesn't mind it sometimes, but I think he gets tired of it after a while. Sorry, Norm! We're also doing some neck stretches, just in case.
Norm (traveling off the mat during tummytime) and big brother John.
Norm also got 4 shots during his appointment. The doctor usually does a "combination" vaccine so the children get less actual shots, but Norm couldn't get that one since he had already had 2 doses of the Hepatitis B vaccine. Poor Norm! He actually handled the shots great though. He stopped crying within seconds of the shots being administered. Also, thanks to the shots, Norm only woke up once that night. Unfortunately, I didn't get to appreciate the extra sleep as I was up with Pauli and John. Oh well.
On most nights, Norm gets up to nurse every 3 hours. It's not awful as he goes back to sleep very easily. I feel like he should be going longer at night by now. I know John was only getting up once during the night by this point. He was sleeping through the night by 12 weeks. Of course, John was also on a schedule. Norm is not on a schedule yet. His only "schedule" is that he eats about every 3 hours. Life has been so crazy that I haven't figured out what schedule to try to get Norm on. It's easier just to let him sleep when he can and go with the flow of the day. However, I think I'm making it harder for myself in the long run so I need to start focusing on getting him on a regular schedule. I have finally introduced storytime for Norm before afternoon nap and before bedtime. His "bedroom" is off the master bathroom in our apartment so I started reading him stories while John used the potty before his naptime and bedtime. It's a bit strange doing it while sitting on the bathroom floor, but John loves the company and it was a rare part of my day when I had time to do it. I'm sure this is normal for non-first children, but I feel like Norm has not gotten all the perks that John got. I'm sure it will all even out over time, but meanwhile I feel a little guilty.
In other news, we made it back to the McKinney Library on Tuesday for story time. John loves the songs--especially "Going on a Bear Hunt" and "The Hokey Pokey." (He's really getting into songs these days. This morning he was doing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" in the bathtub.) We also got our library card and checked out three Sesame Street books and one Sesame Street DVD. We were definitely spoilt by the HUGE children's DVD selection at the Westlake library and John was a bit disappointed by the ONE Sesame Street DVD available at the McKinney library. Oh well. He was still really excited to check out the Sesame Street books. The self checkout system at the McKinney library was so easy that John could do most of it himself which he thought was very cool.
Anyway, we're looking forward to a fun weekend with Brian. He and John are planning to go to the pool if John is feeling up to it. We're also off to look at new potty seats. John's Sesame Street potty seat is bent in the middle and John no longer wants to use it. He hasn't pooped in the potty for two days :(. If a new potty seat is the answer than I am all for it. We will see. Brian heads out of town again on Monday. Hopefully by then Pauli will be feeling better.
And on a totally random note, I have decided to treat myself to a fun new bag--one of the ones that Tara sells. Anyway, I have decided the style bag I like (the Andi), but can't decide on fabrics. You can actually go to their website and design a virtual bag to see how the different fabrics work. If you want to play and give me suggestions, go here. You can create a bag and e-mail it to me at ehstone[at]yahoo[dot]com. Thanks for your help!
Hope you all are doing well! Happy weekend! Happy summer!
1 comment:
whew! hope the raining AND pouring stops soon! look forward to catching up by phone soon - realized i don't have your #, although i know i can get it from cat and that you prob don't have much time to talk these days. hang in there, and can't wait to see ya :)
Post a Comment