Picture Wednesday and a Memorable 4th

Here's picture Wednesday, just a tad bit late this week.  Baby Finn at 28 weeks old.  

 It's been a crazy week.  Tate has been much better overall.  Glenn stayed home last Friday (he only has to work a half day on Fridays anyway) and having the long weekend with Daddy home seemed to make all the difference.  Glenn's been really busy at work, traveling a lot, and busy with a lot of lacrosse obligations for the last few months and it's possible that was part of Tate's issue.  He missed his daddy.  At least, having Glenn home for a few days straight really seemed to help.  By Monday when Glenn went back to work he was behaving much better and seemed to have his freak-outs and anxiety under control.  It was a complete turn around from the week before.  Wednesday was pretty rough for Tate and he had some total melt downs again, but that's probably due to the craziness of that day.  He's been fine since.  I hope that he's feeling better for good.  It was so hard to watch him be completely out of control about every single decision or transition in his day.  And it was hard for me to be patient all day long.  I was on the verge of calling a child psychologist for some tips but he really is a different boy now.  Hopefully he just needed some daddy time...and he's had plenty of that this week as well.

So...the fourth.  It started out great.  We went to a ward breakfast and then went straight down town to meet the Cluffs at the aquarium.  We had planned to hang out there for a couple hours and then find somewhere fun to have a picnic lunch.  Then we were planning to go home, put the boys down for a nap, and have the Garvins and the missionaries over for a BBQ dinner.  Well, it didn't go exactly as planned.

The boys were so happy to be out.  They both love the aquarium.

Hanging out with the Cluff ladies is always a treat.  Tate talks about them every time we go somewhere.  "Can Tori and Lizzy come to my swimming lessons?"  "Can Tori and Lizzy come with us to the library?"  He loves those girls and they play really well together which is a huge perk because we really like their parents!  Here they are looking at the otters doing flips in their tank.

 And sometimes when a monkey sees something to climb, he just has to climb it.  (We've been reading a lot of curious george lately.)

 Looking at some sea horses.

I'm so glad the Cluffs moved out here.  They were our best friends in Austin and we've missed them a lot.  We've been able to get together just a few times since they've been out here, and I'm sure it will happen many more times.  They're just wonderful.

I'd been having an odd ache in my side all morning and as we walked around the aquarium it got worse and worse.  I was trying to think of a way to politely bow out of the picnic to go home and get some meds.  And then I took Tate on this little 4D ride they had at the aquarium.  He enjoyed it.  I did not enjoy it so much.  The pain kept getting worse and worse and by the time we got off I had to run to the bushes to throw up and then curl up on the sidewalk.  Glenn ran to grab the car and the Cluffs followed us to the hospital.  I've had two babies but I've never felt pain like that before and I hope I never do again.  It was so horrible.  We made it to the ER and after what felt like years, they gave me something for the pain.  They had to give me three shots of pain meds before it started to feel better at all.  So awful.  It was not the nicest hospital but most of the folks were really nice.  I had a CT scan which confirmed that I have a kidney stone.  And after several hours they sent me home with a pain medicine prescription.  Basically there's nothing you can do but wait and stay on meds to help with the pain.  I thought, "no big deal.  If the pain's under control I can totally handle this."

We were very lucky and blessed in several ways that day.  It was a huge blessing to be with the Cluffs when it got bad.  They were incredibly helpful.  That's one thing I love the most about their family.  They'll help you in any way they can and never make you feel like it's a burden to them at all.  They came to the hospital, took our boys home in our car, fed them, put them down for naps, and basically took great care of them while I was writhing in pain in the hospital.  Then after a few hours Aunt Nancy and Uncle Steve came over to take over for them so they could bring our car back to the hospital and head back to their house on the other side of the city.  So much help.  I'm so glad we have such great friends and family here.  That could have been much harder for us and the kids without their help.

Needless to say, we had to cancel our dinner which was a bummer.  The Garvins stayed at our house for a while and ordered out dinner for them and Glenn and it was nice to have them to talk to for a couple hours.

It was a very eventful day.  I had no idea something so teensy could cause so much pain.  It was incredible.  Another blessing is that Glenn has used very little vacation time so far this year and he was able to stay home the last couple of days to take care of the boys and I.  I'm able to keep the pain under control which is great, but the pain meds make me insanely nauseous.  I haven't been able to keep down anything since Wednesday morning.  It's no fun.  Today I think I've finally figured out which anti-nausea meds to take and how to time it just right so they're working before I take my pain meds.  It's been a mess.  I don't understand how anyone could like to be on pain meds.  Maybe they get something out of it that I don't, because I feel gross.  I feel dizzy, really nauseous, shaky and tired.  It's yucky.  At least I'm not in pain, but I'm so grateful that Glenn's been around to help with the boys because just carrying Finn up the stairs makes me a little nervous because I'm so out of it.  He's been super dad the past few days.  He took both boys to a movie, to swimming lessons, and swimming another time, he's bowling with Tate right now.  I can't imagine how hard this would have been if Glenn were out of town when this happened.

Kidney stones.  Who knew that something so small could cause so much trouble.  I hope this is the last time I ever have to deal with this mess.  I'm oddly sensitive and embarrassed about it.  Maybe it's the area of my body involved, maybe it's that I have to pee something out in order for it to be over.  I dunno, but it's embarrassing to me.  People I barely know who found out about it from Glenn's facebook page asking me, "So, have you passed it yet?"  I feel awkward about it.

While this fourth of July was a memorable one, I think I'd be happy if it was just a once in a lifetime thing. Hopefully it will be over soon.