Prepping for the Holidays

You guys, we have less than 100 days until Christmas is here.

Less than 100.

I'll let that sink in for a minute.

I really don't want to be rushing around this year trying to get gifts for everyone especially because I am a classic procrastinator. I also have found it to be increasingly difficult to get gifts that family members actually would use-something that they would enjoy having instead of a generic gift. Now that our family includes our crazy Kaden, I think a safe gift for the grandparents would be pictures or something personalized along that line.  But you can only have enough room on your shelves and walls for pictures before they're completely taking over your house right? But you can always use more magnets.

I was recently contacted by PicStick, a company that creates magnets out of your pictures to create personalized magnets.  It is super easy, all you need to do is upload 9 pictures from your computer, tablet, phone, Facebook account or even from Dropbox, make sure they look fantastic and click order! It took less than a week for them to be made and sent to us. The only issue I found was if you zoom in on your pictures when you add them, it does make them grainy. Other than that, I think these are fantastic. They're easy to slip into the envelope with your holiday cards for a just because gift, or you could make a whole sheet as a gift for someone. These are 14.99 for a sheet that includes 9 magnets but I have good news!

The people over at PicStick were generous enough to create a promotional code for me to share with you all- when you are done adding all of your pictures, be sure to enter OPS25 to receive 25 % off your order! 

So head on over to PicStick.com and get a little jump on your holiday gift giving! Enjoy friends-

xo

Happy Neonatal Nurse Day

 If you are a Neonatal Nurse- I wish I could hug you-wherever you are. I am forever grateful for every single nurse that we had while Kaden was in the hospital. A part of me still misses some of the nurses that we had because they were such a huge part of our life for so many days and nights. Don't get me wrong, some of the nurses we had were less than friendly-but regardless they still were responsible for taking care of our little man when he needed it the most. Before February 11, I have never met a NICU nurse before. I haven't even been inside of a NICU.  Then before we knew it these strangers would turn out to be some of the most important people in our lives whether we were ready or not. I came across a post on a Preemie baby website I've been reading and following and it prompted me to write my own. I just want to take this chance and thank the NICU nurses everywhere, specifically the nurses that we had in our life.

Thank you for remembering us every day and every night. 

Thank you for requesting to be Kaden's nurse time and time again.

Thank you for answering every single one of my 384,598,728 questions I had daily.

Thank you for listening to my concerns and advocating for me.

Thank you for missing your child's baseball game to take care of our child.

Thank you for letting me call every hour to check on Kaden when I had to go home for the night.

Thank you for telling me "you will be okay" when I needed it the most.

Thank you for re-swadding Kaden 500 times a day because he broke out-yet again and re-taping his tubes because he pulled them off/out for the 25th time that hour. 

Thank you for sitting with me every day and every night when I had to be there without John.

Thank you for picking this profession and kicking ass at it.

There are so many more things that I am so thankful for. But most of all, thank you for keeping our baby alive and thriving when he was most fragile. Being in a hospital can be pretty horrible, but thank you to our nurses for making it a little more bearable.

xo

 

you can read about Kaden's story here

Our First Urgent Care Visit

Well it has been some time since I posted-I'm sorry I've been behind (yet again). We've been quite busy over here. If you saw our most recent Facebook status- you would have heard that we had to go to the ER for a penny update. Let me share with you:
I never thought my child swallow a penny. Honestly. I know that all kids get into everything but I guess I thought we wouldn't have to go down that road. Well-I was wrong. Turns out Kaden is continuing to throw surprises my way. (I mean, what kid does that?) Typical Friday afternoon, we were going through his clothes prepping for our upcoming family trip to North Carolina for a wedding. I knew there was a penny in his room, I put it on the shelf towards the back remembering to grab it on our way out. Nope, he wanted it and I didn't see him grab it-put it in his hand and transfer it to his mouth when I was changing his pants. Whaddya know...he starts choking, coughing and I start to panic. He tried to throw up, but it didn't come out which made the penny travel down. I remembered all of the training we had to go through at the hospital for CPR and acted.  John raced home and we tried to get him to throw up again-with no luck. We called 911 and the paramedics rushed over (firetruck and ambulance...sirens and all) and by the time they came to check Kaden out-he was acting like nothing happened. What a stinker. They suggested we take him to the ER or Urgent Care to still get him looked at and we of course agreed. After what felt like forever-we finally got his x-ray. 

 See that big ol' white spot?? Yep, that would be a penny. A PENNY. All we could do is wait for him to pass it. How you ask? You reach a new level of parenting-that's all I'm going to say.  We were told it should pass within 24-48 hours and if it hasn't within a week we need to take him in for another x-ray. Well that doesn't really ease my nerves..what if he doesn't pass it!? What does that mean will happen!? How would I know-we've never had to encounter this issue before. But we decided we'll deal with that when the time comes. We go on our family trip to North Carolina and come back and we have yet to see a penny. So after 9 days (let me add here-he acted completely normal this whole time...) we call and check to see what to do. We were told to go to the military hospital that has an ER which happens to be about 45 minutes away just in-case we have to have surgery. Excuse me? Alright, let me calmly take my child to see if we have to surgically remove this stupid penny. After hours of waiting in a germ infested ER...we had our results.

 

HAPPY DANCE! We are penny free! Somehow we missed that dreaded thing. The doctor chuckled and sent us on our way back home. He also told us that pretty much everything will pass. But I also don't want to experience any of these situations again and I hope other parents won't have to go through this either. BUT if you do-just know that you're not alone. Oh the joys of parenting-you learn something new every day-right?

xo