Root Canal

Shortly after my son was born in 2008 I started getting recurring ear infections. Thank goodness he wasn't a big cryer. I had my teeth checked and learned that a filling had broken and I needed a root canal. This could also explain the recurring ear infections. Anyhow, to be safe I was sent to an ENT who prescribed a year's worth of Nasonex and this seemed to clear everything up. Root canals are crazy expensive and I didn't have coverage so since I was no longer in pain I put it off. One thing I have learned is don't put off dental work. Just do it if you can find the means. At 8 months pregnant with my daughter my tooth began to bother me again. I had an infection and finally had to go ahead and have the root canal done. Luckily, by this time we had coverage under my husband's benefits. So I had it done at 8 1/2 months pregnant. I got through it. The pain however never fully went away. People kept telling me that there's took a while to heal as well but it seemed like my ear infections were coming back and I was having to go back on antibiotics again. I had it checked by a specialist and discovered I needed a retreatment. I had a hidden canal. I was tempted at this point to have it pulled. But at 33 I'm not ready to give up on my teeth. I had the retreatment done about 2 weeks ago. I'm hoping this is it. I'm still sore and on antibiotics. I'm annoyed that I'm still sore but I'm hoping this is it. That after this next round of antibiotics I will finally be pain free. Its exhausting. The next step would be surgery and I can't afford to pay for that even with coverage so we'll see if I will have to say goodbye to my tooth or not.

If you ever have any doubts about your teeth, have them checked. I won't make the same mistake twice. My son is two and I've already brought him for a short check-up. Its New Year's eve and I'm talking about teeth...I need a life, ha! ha!

Bumps and Bruises

We just got back yesterday from five days with the family. I love Christmas. There is just something about it even without the gifts. It makes me feel all warm inside. Last Christmas, for reasons I won't get into right now, was a disaster. Family conflict made it into the worse Christmas I ever experienced. We eventually moved passed that and were really looking forward to this year's festivities. My son Wyatt is now 2 1/2 so we expected that while he didn't quite understand Santa it would be great fun watching him unwrap his gifts and eat all the foods he normally isn't allowed. Christmas eve started off well enough. We went to my sister-in-laws and her girls put on a little show for us. We were heading upstairs to eat. I sat my son at the table and went off to get him a plate. In that short amount of time, maybe seconds, he got off the chair where he was and climbed onto another one. Normally, no big deal but there was a staircase behind that one that had no railing. When he got onto that chair, it tilted and he went flying. All I saw was my angel flying out of the chair. It seemed like it was in slow motion. My husband was downstairs and saw him tumble down the stairs. It was absolutely horrifying. I ran down the stairs as fast as I could but it didn't feel fast enough. Those seconds felt like hours. I got down there and my husband was holding him. He was crying but seemed fine. To be safe we brought him to the hospital. By then he was running around like a crazy person getting into trouble. I never thought him getting into everything would feel so good. My mind keeps replaying the event and each time I replay it it gets worse and worse. To be honest, I'm not sure I can even say for sure what happened. I know it couldn't have been as bad as I think it was since he barely had a bruise. You can't help but feel like you are the worse parent in the world after that. Since then, we've heard several stories of nieces and nephews that have fallen and bumped their heads. Stitches and so forth. Its comforting in a way because you realize that you can't protect them 100%. Things are going to happen. I think what this did to us is made it real and forced us for a second to imagine what life would be like had something horrible happened. I don't ever want to live in that world. I'd say that we got lucky but I think my little guy has an angel... We did salvage Christmas after that. My husband had a difficult time enjoying himself but I focused instead on the fact that our son was perfectly fine and I wanted him to have the time of his life celebrating.

Buying a House

Mika is one week old at this point and my parents-in-law come for a visit. My father-in-law happens to notice a house for sale down the street from ours. We'd been renting our house for close to two years. Buying a house was something we had thought of but because of our mountains of debt we never thought we stood a chance at getting approved for a loan large enough to get the house we wanted. We figured we'd hold off until we had a better chance. I don't know what it was about seeing this house but it sparked a fire in my husband. He started looking at houses online day and night. In no time, we had a real estate agent showing us houses. One thing we learned fast was that the pictures you see online are rarely an accurate depiction of the house. What you see on the outside does not give you an accurate idea of what you will find inside. We saw some houses that were beautiful on the outside but then we'd walk in and the house would be falling apart or the opposite. We finally found a house and we were so excited because we had been pre-approved for more than enough to purchase it. We had to act fast because others were interested. So we went home and quickly decided to go ahead. We put our offer in and just made it before an other couple did. Our offer was accepted right away. You would think this would have been the end of what I felt was more stressful than my pregnancy but this was just the beginning. The whole process was taking too long. We had seven days to complete everything but by the seventh day we still needed another week for final approval and then all the documents needed to be approved. It was so frustrating. The computers went down...there was a long weekend in there somewhere that delayed things further...it was a nightmare. Finally, the day came where everything was approved and the house would be ours. Probably one of the most exciting days of my life...

My angel is crying...time to go...

Where did the time go?

When I started this blog in July, I figured I would go a week or two without posting since my little girl was almost ready to come. I didn't think it was going to be months before I would return. Since this blog is new, I don't think anyone missed me...

Life really has changed since my last post. My baby girl Mika was born on August 5 as planned by c-section. Everything went well and she was perfectly healthy at 6lbs 11oz. My two year old son fell in love with her as did the rest of us the instant we laid eyes on her. What a blessing having a baby truly is. Coming home was hard. I was beyond ready to leave the hospital but scared at the same time of having two little people that needed me so much. It took me a couple of weeks to adjust to the fact that I no longer had the time I once had for my son. It broke my heart in the beginning. I was flooded with feelings of guilt. After I'd finish a night feeding, I often found myself in tears thinking of him and how I was going to be too tired to spend quality time with him in the morning. I missed him and just wanted to be able to lay with him and snuggle while we watched Mickey Mouse. As my precious Mika adjusted to life outside of the womb, those feelings passed and we all adjusted to having Mika with us.