I guess I will begin with a week ago:
We found out a few months ago that my poor husband has been living with a hernia for the last...2 years...? I'm sure most of you will shake your heads and some of you will understand, but we have gone without health insurance since after Emily was born and when we found out baby Claire was on her way we figured it was high time to figure something out. LONG story short: We now have health insurance. So Aaron had this....er...."bulge". He was pretty sure it was a tumor, but after getting it checked out, we were happy to know that it wasn't. Instead it was a hernia that "had gone entirely too long and needs to be fixed before it causes more damage". Now, I'm not dumb, and I know the common symptoms of a hernia, none of which Aaron really had so I ruled it out pretty early on. Well we should have known. With Aaron being the biggest guy at work, he's the heavy lifter. Apparently that automatically equals a hernia.
So the day finally came around for Aaron to go in. WEDNESDAY. at 6:00 in the morning I took him in to the hospital. He was prepped and ready to go under in an hour and by 7:30 he was under the knife. I got a call from the dr. at 9:00 saying that they were done and Aaron was in recovery. The hernia had been significantly larger than they had thought via ultrasound and that they had to shave/remove portions of his intestines in order to untangle and dislodge them. Apparently he "wouldn't miss them and it wouldn't effect the nature of his healing process". I could be wrong here but I'm pretty sure I would miss my intestines, but I also don't know what I'm talking about. Aaron was out of the hospital by 10:00 that morning. Thank God he slept most of the day!
I don't know how many of you have husbands, but I hear that my feelings are pretty common, so I don't feel bad sharing them. To be perfectly honest, I was TERRIFIED of having Aaron home 24/7!!! Our Saturdays are lovingly referred to as our bickering days. I am a stay at home mom, who rules the roost from 8-5 every single day. To have an intruder on my turf was going to be interesting!
I have my own ways of doing things:
I clean a certain way (from front of the house to the back) I do the bed sheets first when I do laundry because honestly I want them to be the cleanest. I do Aarons clothes last because they are the ones that are packed full of saw dust and dirt and I don't want that transferring over to mine and Emilys clothes. I then do our white towels with a smidge of bleach (to keep them white and to "clean out" the washer for Aaron's mom) and hang those on the line to crispy dry. I do this EVERY Tuesday and it takes most of my day since I have to trek back and forth from my house to Aaron parents for every load and even in between. That's just the way it is. It's been that way since I've had Emily and became a stay at home mom. So when Aaron decides to make "suggestions" I tend to be a little flustered! I want my husband to come home and say "wow, thank you for doing all of the laundry! You're amazing" (okay that's a little over exageratted) NOT "well why don't you just haul all of it over there in one trip that way you don't have to lug it back and forth every single time" or "why don't you fold it right when it comes out of the dryer?" I have MY way of doing it... if you want it to get done at all then shut it!
I could go through the list of what I'm sure to my loving husband seemed like "helpful suggestions" but to me they were criticism. So needless to say, I was really nervous to find out how taking care of another "big baby" and Emily, AND doing my daily routine was going to turn out.
Guess what: It was amazing. Not because for the first few days my husband was drugged and slept most of the time but because Aaron and I do well together. LOL...I sure hope so if we are married, huh? I don't mean it like that. Before Aaron and I had Emily and right after we were married, we had a 6 month period where we had no tv, no computer, no internet...and we didn't complain. We truely just enjoyed eachothers company. We NEVER fought. Friends and family were amazed at the fact that Aaron was able to find a female version of him. Even though we didn't have alot of the same hobbies, I was willing to watch and I was willing to go. We had no responsibilities. Life was great and we were great together.
Enter TV, internet, a crazy pregnant wife which turns into just a crazy wife and a screaming baby and things get harder. Enter your quarterlife crisis, a job that you don't want to do for the rest of your life, but have to do it because you have mouths to feed. Enter another crazy pregnant wife that you know will eventually turn into just a crazy wife and a screaming baby/ mouth to feed. All jam packed into a one bedroom, one bathroom "house" and you begin to see where lifes responcibilities can eat you alive.
In case you think this blog was temporaraly highjacked by Aaron, it wasn't. I have a point here. Aaron is my other half. His worries and troubles are my worries and troubles. Therefore all of this wears on US. Gone are the days of laying on the couch gazing into eachothers eyes (yes, at one point that was the norm for us...gross huh?!) THAT has turned into us TRYING to figure out how to lay on the couch together with my big belly, Emily jumping on us or trying to flush the cat down the toilet, the tv on, the phone ringing, or dinner burning (since the only time aaron is home is right before dinner time, eats and then goes to bed) There is no US time.
Yet somehow over this last week, with Aaron being home ALL day long (even though he wasn't able to do much) and removing he stress of work, having to bring home the bacon and just getting to spend time with his daughter, and maybe a smidge of being waited on hand and foot...my husband was a much happier man. Which in turn made me a much happier woman. I really REALLY enjoyed having my husband around!
The good/bad news is that Aaron is now feeling much better, which means it's "high ho, high ho, it's off to work he goes" I mean really, SOMEONES got to do it. He has a dr.'s appointment today just to make sure everything is healing properly. He's supposed to be off for another 4 weeks...like that will happen. He really has been a trooper through this whole thing and that makes me proud!
On Saturday, Aaron's mom took Emily to a baby shower in Simi Valley, they stayed there over night and went to the LA zoo the next day. I don't have any pictures yet, but hopefully someone got some at some point. One of the downfalls of being the family photographer is that when you're not there, no one gets pictures! I guess it turned out to be a pretty miserable 105 degree day in Southern California and all of the animals were stowed away in their cool caves, so Emily didn't get to see as many animals as she could have. I'm not really sure if seeing a million animals or just getting to see a giraffe would make a difference to her. I think it ALL would make her day! She definatly talked about it for days afterwards!
So, I've been sick. If you've ever been sick and pregnant then you know how miserable I am. Toss in a toddler and a bed ridden husband and I'm surprised I'm still alive!! Normally when I'm sick, I can take a cocktail of medications that I've learned over the years work the best together. This mixture usually makes me a little loopy and sleepy but it gets me through the day without feeling SICK. Well, when you're pregnant it seems that the general rule of thumb is that you cannot take any medicine that works. You can take as much tylonal as you want....doesn't do a thing for me. You can even use nose saline spray! Isn't that just a nicer way of saying you can spray water up your nose? For what purpose? I can take Robitissum DM for cough and congestion. I have been using it religiously! I feel like if I cough any more that I might just cough baby Claire right out! Dont worry...everything I read said that she might get sloshed around a little more but that she is so protected that there is no way all of my hacking could do her any harm. Which is good to know because it's KILLING ME!. I've got a bowling ball strapped to my stomach and lodged into my lungs. I can hardly breath and my stomach muscles hurt like there is no tomorrow. I did, however, find one thing that has helped me tremendously! VICKS vapor rub!!!! It is my new best friend. It is safe to use during pregnancy and if you slather the bottom of your feet in it and put some socks on before bed, it helps reduce that horrible, annoying tickling cough that keeps you up all night. I pretty much take a bath in Vicks before bed.
And lastly, since I've wrote a novel and it's time for a nap for me and Emily:
Now, I could have this all wrong but to my understanding, Emily's uncle matt is dating this really nice girl who's best friend's dad owns Zoo to You. This place is exactly what it sounds like. It's a conservation zoo, that has raised animals in order to educate people and preserve all different types of wildlife. They travel the country educating kids on how what they can do to help. I think I heard a rumor that a good chunck of the animals from the Pixar movie Over the Hedge are all based off of the animals from this zoo. Pretty cool stuff. Anyway, Matt and his girlfiend organized a little tour for Emily yesterday. She got to go around and see all the animals and pet some of them.
I think her favorite though were the kangaroos. The owners have an inclosed area around their house where they have kangaroos that run around like the common dog. That would just be crazy to me!! Again, one of the downfalls of being the family photographer....no one else thinks to have a camera. Matt took this picture on his camera phone. I'm definately going back next time so that I can capture everything for Emily to remember.
What kid gets to go to a zoo 2 times in the span of a few says?! Can we say SPOILED? If I'm not careful she's going to be asking for a kangaroo for Christmas!
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