So this morning Elijah had his follow up appointment with his cardiologist and the day started out very interesting. First, Elijah is having to sleep unswaddled now and so he's not sleeping terrifically at night anymore. So he had already woken up several times and even though I didn't have to get him up and feed him, I did have to keep getting up and helping him settle back to sleep, which can sometimes take as long as a feeding. Then around 5:30 I woke up to hear him crying, but it was a muffled crying sound. Now normally when he wakes up in the middle of the night he doesn't cry, he just kind of makes grunty noises like he's having trouble settling. This was different. And it sounded muffled like there was something near his nose.
So I sprang up and reached for him only to discover that he had flipped over onto his tummy AGAIN and wasn't able to flip back over. So while swallowing my heart back down into my chest, I flipped him back over and then picked him up and brought him up to feed him since it was already 5:30 and the experience had scared him a little. That brings us to thing #1 for which I am grateful: That I heard Elijah on his tummy and that he was not swaddled.
After that we tried to lie back down and go back to sleep, but he was pretty awake so we didn't get to sleep until what I would guess was about 6:45 because when the alarm went off at 7:00 I didn't feel like I'd slept at all, even though I was clearly asleep before it went off and woke me up. And unfortunately I couldn't go back to sleep because I had to get up and get ready to take Elijah to the doctor's office.
So I did that and we all drove downtown to Children's Mercy Hospital where his appointment was. We had to wait a long time before we finally got to go back for our appointment. It was scheduled at 9:00 and I don't think we went back until like 9:30, I don't think they did his echo until 10:00 and I'm positive we didn't actually see the doctor until almost 11:00.
But while she was doing the echo he was starting to fuss because he was tired, so we gave him his pacifier with some sugar water on it and he settled down. I stroked his head and let him hold my finger and he fell asleep. Then when she was done and we went back to the exam room, I put him down on the exam table and he slept there, too, until the doctor finally came in. It was baffling to me how well he was sleeping since he got startled several times but just went back to sleep without much trouble. Later I asked the doctor if he thought his heart issues had anything to do with his sleeping troubles, but as I described them the doctor said he just thought Elijah was a social person and didn't like being in the room alone. So, thing #2 for which I am grateful: I though of another thing to try to help him sleep better. I'm going to try leaving the TV on low for him to see if the people talking on TV makes him think he's not alone in the room. If that doesn't work I'll try recording myself talking or singing and play that for him and see if it helps.
So we finally saw the doctor and he said that the defects in Elijah's heart have not gotten any smaller but they have also not grown even though he has grown. So if they stay the same size even though he gets bigger, he may not have to have any procedure and he doesn't want to see Elijah again until next year. So that is things\ #3 for which I am grateful.
However, we had been there so long that it was past time for Elijah to eat again. I fed him a little at the doctor's office but there's really no comfortable place (for me or Elijah) to nurse. (You would think there would be since it's a children's hospital, but whatever.) I was hoping the small nursing would stave off his hunger until we could get home. But first we had to drop Mike off at work and Elijah was starting to cry even as I got into the driver's seat to go home. People on the road probably were calling me all sorts of colorful names as I attempted to race home so that he wouldn't have to go for too long before he got to eat (especially since I hate listening to him cry) and downtown is pretty far from our house. So thing #4 for which I am grateful is that I did not get a ticket for speeding.
I finally got home around noon and after letting the dog out, I immediately went upstairs and fed Elijah. I was pretty hungry by then, too, but he comes first, obviously. So then I went back downstairs and was going to put him in his bouncy chair so I could finally get some lunch when I smelled something familiar and decided I probably needed to change his diaper before I ate. Ah, if only it had been that simple. See, Mike has suddenly decided that he doesn't like putting Elijah's diapers on very tightly because he's afraid it hurts him or something. I don't really know why. But since he was the one who changed Elijah's diaper at the doctor before I came home, the poo didn't really stay in the diaper. Instead, it ended up all over his legs and back and bottom and tummy.
So I wiped it up as best I could and took off his soiled clothes. I threw the diaper away and took him downstairs to give him a bath. He, of course, decided to pee while I was giving him a bath so that added another thing to the giant list of things I had to clean up. But after bathing him, I put a new diaper on him and put him in his bouncy chair. Then I cleaned the pee off the counter, changed the changing table cover and crib sheet, and took his soiled clothes to the bathroom where I rinsed the poo off them as best I could and then took them down to the basement to put spray and wash on them and leave them in the laundry hamper.
When I got downstairs I discovered a spider in the hamper which I am afraid might have been a fiddleback. So I went back upstairs and got a flip flop to kill it and a piece of toilet paper to scoop up the carcass. So spider died and went down the toilet, but I'm afraid if there was one there might be more so I'm making Mike a HazMat suit and sending him down there with bug spray tonight. But thing #5 for which I am grateful is that I saw the spider and was able to kill it without getting bitten.
So then I sprayed the soiled clothes with spray and wash and then go back upstairs and FINALLY make my lunch. Thing #6 for which I am grateful: Elijah played happily in his bouncy chair the whole time I was dealing with this poo/pee mess and spider situation.
Anyway, now things have finally calmed down and I'm fairly certain Elijah is getting hungry again so I'd better go feed him. But after today I have no energy to make dinner for the 7th and final thing for which I am grateful: Mike is picking up Panera for dinner tonight.
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