August 2011

Ben is now 7 months old. He still does not have any teeth! I can't believe they have not broken through yet, hopefully soon! He is doing great. He started clapping yesterday, August 29th. He makes lots of fun noises. When he is upset or crying, he always makes the "n " noises- funny how he has his negative choice! He takes solids well and laughs a lot. He has started getting up super early- 4:30 - 4:45 am and he is up for a few hours, then takes a nap! I am trying to break him of this but don't really know how. If I leave him to fuss, he gets worked up and cries hard. If I feed him with the hope he will go back to sleep, he often is just wide awake and happy. I guess I may try feeding him, then putting him back in his crib to see if he falls asleep.

Ben has become super active. He is not crawling yet, but he is really mobile. He rolls all over the place, can turn around and get where he wants to go. He is reaching up for things and trying to grab anything he can see. He will not sit still in my lap anymore, he wriggles around until he is free. The other day he leaned over me to the arm of the couch, pulled himself a bit, I grabbed his leg and over the edge he went, headfirst. I was able to gently lay him on the ground since I had his leg. He is always looking around to see what is near him- he is extremely inquisitive!

We did not send Ainsley back to her school this Fall, electing instead to have her stay with Mandy. I feel like Ainsley needs to be around other children, so we may try to do more playdates, or maybe one day a week at a childcare center.

Bubbles!

Ainsley loves her baby brother. She gives him lots of attention, likes to be there when he wakes up, she checks on him, she cuddles him, she has even helped to feed him. Of course, Ben loves Ainsley too. He likes to look at her and often smiles and laughs at her antics.

Ainsley has started to take pictures with our camera. She has 'hijacked' it a few times and taken hundreds of pictures around the house. It is so funny to look at the pictures and get her view of everything. She photographed every object in each room. For example in our bathroom. She got a picture of: sink, faucet, mirror, light fixture, tub, shower, toilet, wall, light switch, carpet, tile. Then she moved to the next room. It was so funny! At first, she got her fingers in the pictures,and they were blurry, but then she figured it out. Here are 2 pictures she took of Ben.

My only news is that I broke my pinky toe last week. It was Thursday night, we were in the middle of putting the kids to bed. Ainsley was screaming/crying because she did not want to go to bed. Dan took Ben to his room to try and put him down. I was working with Ainsley. We had kids music playing so I went to turn it off. As I was walking back to Ainsley, I caught the corner of the couch- a loud thunk. It hurt, I sat down and looked at my foot. My right pinky was in a very abnormal position and my foot hurt. Groaning. Only good news is that Ainsley stopped crying and worriedly ran up to see what happened. Brie ran up the stairs to see me- she loves when I sit on the floor so she can get attention. Unfortunately, she saw my foot sticking up and decided to rub her face on my toes. She started at the big toe and worked her way to the pinky. OMG, really? I pushed her away. Dan, Ben and Remi came next and Remi walked right up to my foot and wanted to sniff- luckily Dan pushed her away. My toe is not loving the attention.

Granddad came over the watch the kids while we went to an Urgent Care center to have my toe fixed. We got the kids to sleep first, then left. I was unable to put any weight on my R foot. I tried walking on the heal but there were shooting pains and I could not support myself. Dan had to help me quite a bit. I was actually quite impressed with the after hours place we went- it was a beautiful new facility- very nicely decorated,very clean, a nice and professional staff, they had great equipment and we were in an out quickly. The doctor came in- he was really old and had a hard time walking himself. He looked at my foot and said it needed to be put back in place and the best thing to do it just do it because the local hurts more. Then he pulled really hard on my broken, displaced toe. OMG agony for 15 seconds of pulling. I felt a slide, pop. We looked down and it was only about halfway back to normal position. He had to pull again. NO! This time, he just pulled really, really hard for about 30 seconds ( maybe shorter, but it seemed like a LONG time). This time thank goodness it was straight. I think the local would have been less painful, especially since it took 2 attempts at reduction.

The radiographs were taken then and showed P2 to be fractured, obliquely. It was beautifully reduced- the bones were well aligned. Now I have to wear a post op shoe/boot for 6 weeks to allow the bone to heal and tape the broken toe to my 4th toe. I could actually put weight on my foot with the shoe after it was fixed.

It is amazing how much a toe hurts. Of course, since I am nursing Ben, I can't take any prescription pain medications, just advil and tylenol. My foot ached the first few days, but now is better for the most part. It does ache at times, especially when I am on it a bit or when I move just the wrong way. I hope the pain decreases rapidly as my lifestyle is not really conducive to rest. I have to be on my feet at work and at home with 2 kids, pets, stairs, etc. I also really hope that my toe heals straight since I can't rest as much as I feel I should.