I GOT A NEW CAR!!! Just a little bit excited about that, in case you couldn't tell haha. We decided that having a van just wasn't working out for us, in terms of commuting miles and gas prices.We were putting at least 1200 miles a month on the van, and were paying close to 300 in gas. It hurts my wallet just thinking about it again! Plus the van had just turned over 130,000 miles and we knew it was getting really close for our last chance to get a good trade on it. As good timing would have it, my friend and work cohort Cortney was in the market for a van before she moved away to Washington, so we sold it to her and her cute family last Wednesday. It was a little bittersweet though; we've had that car since Jayson was just one month old, and have made a lot of memories with it over the past three years! I still get confused when I go home and it's not parked in the garage lol. However, practicality won out, and now the van gets to make itself some new memories with Cortney's family!
Not a great picture of it, but here is my 2013 Nissan Altima, and yes, I LOVE it! I get about 500 miles to my tank of gas (admittedly it is an 18 gallon tank) which fills my heart and wallet with joy. It has lots of nice new car goodies that I'm still figuring out as I go lol. The only downside I've discovered so far is that the car didn't come with an in-car DVD player like the van. To fix that, we purchased ourselves a twin-screen DVD player at Walmart, and now we're good to go.
Jayson enjoying the new car!
Maxwell enjoying the new car. I've really got to steal back my window shades that I left in the van, because my poor kiddos have to squint in the sun all the time now. Not to mention that those sunglasses only stayed on Max's face about five seconds longer than the picture--silly boy just won't keep them on yet!
We went up to Idaho last weekend (Friday through Monday) to visit with my sister's family, and as usual, we had a blast! We had a little birthday party for Jayson, which he thought was fantastic fun. Because it was a pirate theme party, all of the kids got to go on a treasure hunt throughout the whole house to find one of Jayson's gifts (which actually was in a treasure chest in case you were wondering): smarties, sugar free chocolate, and Capri Sun pouches. I wanted to get pictures of the kids treasure hunting, but they were too quick for me! We had a hot dog/BBQ style dinner, cake and ice cream for dessert, and balloons/decoration galore. After dinner Jayson got to open another present, which was a doctor's kit! In case you were wondering, the most argued over item was the band aid that could be worn as a bracelet.
Didn't realize that the picture was sideways, but can't really fix it now. Oh well. A shot of the cake that we all (minus Jayson and Max) enjoyed, courtesy of Walmart. My boys got to have a special chocolate cake that Sam made for them, out of cocoa powder and coconut flour (among other things). Max was crazy for it, whereas Jayson was kind of too excited with all the party going-ons to eat much.
Our three year old pirate! He got to take that hat home with him, and is still obsessed with wearing it around. It totally cracks me up :]
All seven kids enjoying their dinner. As I recall, Max ate like a beast at that meal, while Jayson ate a small amount. That's kind of the norm at our house lately--I just hope it doesn't mean that Max is going to grow out of his clothing/shoe size yet again!
Here are a few other random pictures from when we were in Idaho:
Funny story here. When we stay with my sister, Max still shares a room with us. This particular night I went to bed at about 6:30 because I had a bad headache. Max got put down for bed about 7:30 (according to Sam), but felt he wasn't tired yet and needed to wander around the room. When he finally did get tired enough to want to sleep, he was too worn out to climb back into his own bed. So where did he choose to sleep? Right on top of me! I was so sacked out that I didn't even notice either. When Sam went to bed around 11, Max finally got moved into his own bed!
Here's Maxwell-tina! He's not so sure how to feel about the headband, which I guess is a good thing. I just love his big dark-green/brown eyes and reddish hair, isn't he the most handsome thing ever?? Disclaimer: I could be just a little bit biased on that last sentence :]
As I'm sure you notice in the couple of pictures Max has in this post, he is tube free! Sadly, I'm not really sure that this means any progress for us at all. The big reason he is tube free, and has been this past week, is because we just cannot deal with it any more. Max's face was ripped up to the point of bleeding, so he kept pulling the tube out in an effort to get the painful tape off of his face. No matter how much protective stuff we put on his face, water would get in underneath the tape, and consequently cause the chaffing and bleeding. Also, the tube that we did have for him was getting old and difficult to put back in (they are only good for about a month and we had already surpassed that time period). When Sam went to get a new one from our tube supply bag, it turned out all the ones the insurance company had sent us were the wrong size. And this realization came to us the morning we were going to leave for Idaho. Awesome huh? In short, we decided that we had to call it quits with the tube. They are really only intended for short-term use, especially in kids so young like him, and we had already been doing the tube feedings for longer than the doctors had originally planned. Max has hated every day of his tube feedings as well, although I'm sure most of that is because of his no liquids by mouth restriction. It's so hard to explain to him why his big brother can drink from a cup, but he can't. So of course he screams like a wild banshee whenever we say no. That's super hard on us psychologically, always having to tell him no. It seriously wears you down to nothing after 10 weeks. It would be lying if I said that Sam and I have weathered this like pros. It has honestly been the hardest 10 weeks of our marriage, and quite possibly our lives.
After a short dilemma about what on earth we were going to do with the situation, Sam and I decided to let Max have liquids from a cup or his straw-styled sippy cup until his follow up appointment on August 12th. We knew that if we rushed him into the doctor and said we were done with the tube, and that he needed the surgery for a stomach tube ASAP, they would have just put us off until the swallow study anyway. Sad if you ask me, but entirely true. The improvement in Max's general attitude, especially at meal time, has been huge. Not perfect (he is a toddler after all!) but better. Tragically we as his parents do not really feel better. It racks me with guilt every time I hear him choke, cough, or worse yet NOT do those things, and just sound gunky and wheezy. One night while we were in Idaho (sharing a room) and he was sleeping, he actually sounded so bad that I about took him into the emergency room. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that I knew we would have to drive the half hour into Boise to find anywhere equipped for pediatric patients with his strange needs (I assumed they would want to put a feeding tube back in him). Not to mention he seemed to be sleeping just fine, and wasn't any strange shade of color. So instead I had to leave the room and spend a semi-sleepless night on the couch, because I couldn't stand all of the terrible noises he was making.
Let me tell you all: this is NOT the kind of life you want to be living with your young toddler, and it is especially not the kind of life you want to be living feeling pretty much alone. I am tired of the doctors doing practically nothing for Max, and putting us off "until next time". Their laid-back attitude about the whole situation may be them just trying to be cautious and careful, but it rubs off as cavalier and uncaring when you have to live with the problems day in and day out. I understand that they are probably doing their very best and can only come up with so many ideas, but the lack of communication that leads to delay in our treatment is hurting my son, and this momma bear is tired of watching her baby hurt over and over again. I am also tired of living 5 hours away from the only people that could offer us (or at least me) backup and mental relief. Without blabbering on and on about it, I am just really burnt out of my life situation right now. Don't ask me what needs to give or what on earth is going to happen, but something has got to change in the good news direction. Literally, only God knows what and when that is going to be, but I am so ready to reach that point and find out!!
Anyway, that's about all for this time. I'm sure that I will have some sort of update on Max after his Tuesday appointment. And hopefully my coming week off will have some more fun things for this family to do!
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