The Wild Wild Wests

And the winner chosen by random.org is:..... Comment # 3    ~Jamie Kubeczka~ I know for a fact, Jamie has been following our journey for awhile now. While I don't remember how she stumbled upon us (do share Jamie) I am glad she is here for she has given many uplifting comments along the way. Jamie, get in touch with me via email and I will get this out to you before the holidays! As for me...I am dog tired.  I never can understand my children fighting their naps so bad when I would give a lot right now for a solid 8 hours of sleep.  Course, then I catch a glimpse of this face and would lose sleep forever for him!  Since he is asleep right now I am going to head off to the most comfortable bed ever and catch a little shut eye before he beckons me again!  Tomorrow will be filled with french fry, first bath, belly laughing goodness! 

I cannot put my camera down.  I have three beautiful boys that my camera is drawn to.  I sometimes wonder what on Earth I will ever do with all of these photos, but then I sit down every once in awhile and scroll through some old ones like this one of Austin: Or this one of Mason: and I realize in no time flat I will be looking back at all these pictures of Paxton, wondering where the time went.  The boys are growing, even Paxton, right before my very eyes! So, to be able to look back on these and see all of the changes, I have come to the realization that you can never have to many pictures. So I continue to snap away!   Which leads me to my next topic: OUR GIVEAWAY I promised I had a giveaway coming up and I am ready to share it! As mentioned, I have an obsession for picture taking and each time I am in Target (which is often) I walk by these picture frames and they really strike me.  I really just love what it says. It really resonates with me right about now and I am pretty sure it...

As Mondays seems to go, we made the trip to St. Pete again. So, before I go into the details of Paxton, let me start by saying that I am exhausted.  The nights are very short around here. Mr. Man gets up every 3 hours to eat and by the time he is actually done eating, diaper changed and meds given it winds up only allowing me about 2, sometimes 2 1/2, hours between feeds.  Add to this a pulse ox monitor that loves to alarm just about the time I doze off into a deep sleep, which then causes me to shoot straight out of bed, feet never touching the floor to his side to make sure that he is ok .  To date, he has been perfectly fine at night every gazillionth time the darn thing alarms, but you never know when he might not be ok , so I continue to bolt out of bed as if the world were coming to an end. This doesn't allow for a lot of rest and to be honest I am running on fumes I tell you. FUMES! = ) So tonight, this will be short and sweet because it has been a long day. Tom...

While this may sound redundant I have to say I still spend a lot of time each day reveling in the novelty of being home. Spending two entire months in a hospital round the clock really changes you and the things I would have done to be home all that time have yet to escape me. I wonder if they ever will. Course, if they do I will be doing it all over again two more times so I have some reminders lined up. Although, I doubt I will forget. I find I will stop in the moment and realize that I am sitting in my own chair in our beautiful home feeding the baby that was in my belly whom we were unsure would make it more than once.  I find joy in doing all of the little things. I find joy that our family is reunited.  Joy is my word for this holiday season. Keep an eye out for it again coming soon!  Yesterday I spent a good long time going through my emails and facebook in an attempt to get back to so many of those wonderful people who have reached out to me.  I had hundreds upon hundreds of em...

Today was a very long day for Paxton and I, but so worth it in the end.  We made the journey to St. Pete for his first round of rechecks since he was released from the hospital on Wednesday.  He had to see his cardiologist, get  xrays , echocardiograms and ekgs . All of which came back great for his anatomy.  We were allowed to bring him home again which was such a relief since I was told on Wednesday to always bring a bag for these recheck appointments "just in case".  I was nervous to say the least, because I know how fragile HLHS babies are in the time between their Norwood and Glenn surgeries.  I have to say I spent the greater part of last night waxing and waning between the pure joy of being home and the gripping fear of possibly not returning tonight.   I packed my bag with tears streaming my face, hoping and praying that we would get to come home. I doubted the little fighter that is my son and I should know better for he has time and again surprised us all in how...

I mentioned in my last post to stay tuned... and I mentioned that because we have big news to announce! Paxton was released from the CVICU on Wednesday evening, the day before Thanksgiving! My goal since I found out Paxton was sick and that he would need surgery was to have him home in time for Thanksgiving.  When we got to the week before the holiday and no word about home had been mentioned to me after two months, I bumped my goal back to Christmas. Only I got the call on Monday that they were considering letting him go home in 2 days. I roomed in with him to prove that I could do ALL of his care without the help of nurses.  I learned his meds, his monitors, his feeding tube care and was retrained in cpr. We did not mention a word to anybody because we were told in the beginning of all this that you never tell anyone until you are in the car. To many times they have told parents they were going home the next day only to have something happen that night and they don't lea...

Thanksgiving is just around the bend and it obviously tends to make people stop and reflect upon what they are most grateful for.  This time of year just does that to ya! I myself have been spending the last 24 hours in a playback movie of my life the last couple of years and boy do I have a lot to be thankful for this 2009.  We have one heck of a year behind us and one heck of a year ahead of us. For us,  our greatest blessings are smiling at us each day. As we head into the holiday as a family having been separated for all to long, we know that while we have never taken each other for granted, we will no longer ever let the little things take precedence over each other. The clean freak that I am has learned to let it all go and spend each precious moment with my children and husband, for it will surely be still be there when I am good and ready.  My husband has found an appreciation for me that he may have never known was there until he was thrust into "Mr. Mom" role overn...