The Bike Lesson

I learned a lesson last night I’m going to share with all of you. It reminds me of my favorite book as a child. It is an early edition of the Bernstein Bears book called “The Bike Lesson”. Papa bear comes home with a brand new bike for brother bear. But papa won’t let brother ride the bike until he teaches him a comprehensive bike lesson. The story is great because papa ends up doing everything wrong, crashing, getting scraped up, chased, and tells brother “Let this be a lesson for you, something you should never do”.
Anyway, I went to bed at 10:30 with a major head ache. I thought I’d sleep it off, but at midnight when I got up to feed Reed, my head hurt even worse. By 1am, Reed was finished and we both went back to sleep. By Reed’s 3am feeding my head felt like a bomb went off inside. So without thinking I took two extra strength Excedrin. The caffeine must have affected me because by 5am I was still not asleep, and very frustrated. Desperate for sleep and without thinking again I took two Benadryl. WoW, if you want to feel like a drunkard take Excedrin on top of Benadryl. By 5:30am I’d close my eyes and felt like the room was spinning. The Benadryl did the trick and before I knew it my girls were in my room. The clock said 7:30. I got up to feed my three kids, the Benadryl was still in full effect. I was dizzy and felt numb. I almost fainted in the kitchen. The Bike lesson… taking Excedrin and Benadryl is something you should never do. Sum total I got 5 hours sleep all chopped up in one to two hour increments. Oh the joy!

Reed Three Weeks Old

We are home! Reed was discharged on New Years Eve, and has been home now for three days. I've been so busy ever since I didn't get to update until now. He hardly ever cries, and is so cuddly, it's nice to carry him around the house.

Reed has high caloric needs, his work of breathing takes up a lot of energy. We are working with him on feeding, stamina, and gaining weight. We feed him my expressed milk, with added formula to increase the calories. He has to eat 2.5 ounces every three hours around the clock in order to gain weight. Reed has a feeding tube, often he can't finish his bottle, and we put the rest down the tube. This whole process takes up to an hour, and I have to pump on top of that. I get 2 hours before starting the whole process over again.

In the meantime my beautiful perfect daughters get away with murder, because I'm so focused on Reed. Their room is an abomination, like every shelf and drawer threw up on the floor. Somehow Anisten unpotty trained herself, has been pooping and pottying in her panties. Lilly tattles and fights with Anisten. The girls love Reed, want to hold him, and "help" me with everything. They have had to become very independent, and are taking all this pretty well. I keep telling myself that this won't be forever. Rylan has been amazing, we trade off feedings when he is home.

Anisten fell asleep like this the other day........ HaH!