Update on my sleep progress and Brian's shoulder

It's funny to have shifted in a point in parenthood where I'm no longer writing posts about the sleep habits of my children, but rather about myself.  Full circle, I suppose.

You may recall that I wrote a post toward the end of September talking about my recently awful sleep habits, how I was starting to feel run down, and that my goal was to start going to bed at a decent time and stop slipping into a coma on the couch every night.  (post here: http://misadventuresinbabyland.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-weve-been-doingand-what-i-hope-to.html)

I'm pleased to report that I'm making slow, but steady progress.  Things that were detrimental to my goal: ALL THE TV.  You guys.  I love TV.  And of course the week that I decide I should get more sleep is the same week that everything came back....just take a look at the 3 hour Shonda Rhimes marathon occurring every Thursday!!  I make exceptions for that Shonda fest of Greys Anatomy/Scandal/How to Get Away with Murder on Thursday nights, and exceptions for Steelers night games...but other than that, I have been inching closer to being in bed by 10:30, which is a full hour earlier than where I was a few weeks ago. woohoo!

One thing that has helped a lot is that Brian is much more mobile at this point, he's made great progress in just the past 3 weeks or so since he's been doing physical therapy 3 days per week.  This is helpful in that he can now do things like give the kids a bath and get their bedtime routine started so that I can clean up the kitchen during that time...leaving me with much less to do at 8:30 once the kids are in bed.  So YAY for recovery!  I'm happy for myself obviously for selfish purposes, but I'm also very happy for him...his spirits are definitely up and being able to drive has given him a sense of normalcy again (and made him less stir crazy!) 

I also worked toward my goal by taking a sick day last week at work...this is rare for me, and not because I'm super dedicated to my job but because I always seem to have this awful luck of being sick on weekends!  And if I'm not contagious, I have this tendency to drag myself into my office because of all the sick days I take for the kids throughout the year....I feel the need to stockpile them. But last Friday, I woke up with this awful headache....the kind that is blinding and makes you feel nauseated....normally, I might have attempted to go into work or at least contemplated it for a long period of time.  But last week?  Nope.  This girl wasn't having any of it.  I decided within a few minutes of moving around that deserved a sick day to myself to stay in my PJs, nod off on the couch, and watch awful TV to my heart's content.

Gracie was happy to be back on duty as a caretaker for the day:

We watched a lot of this:

Preach it, Ms. Gorga.

After sleeping for a large chunk of the morning, I was able to pull myself together by afternoon...my head was MUCH better.  Sometimes you just need one of those days, I guess.  Real Housewives of NJ is a cure all!! 

On a positive note, I'm still doing my torture total body fusion class on my lunch break at work two days a week.  I can say that I hate it slightly less than I did when I started at the beginning of summer, so...I guess there's that. 

Lessons learned from this post: do some exercise, get some rest, and watch some good shows!!

Brian's surgery = success!!

Perhaps you remember me mentioning in a previous post that Brian had torn his rotator cuff and was scheduled to have surgery in August. After what felt like waiting forever, that day finally came and thankfully, the surgery was  successful.  PHEW!

Hey husbands, here's a free piece of advice for you: file this one under "things I should never say to my wife when I'm about to go under anesthesia and have surgery".  Ready for it?  DO NOT, under any circumstances, start telling your wife on the way to the hospital where she can find all of the important documents should, heaven forbid, something happen to you in surgery.  I was already a nervous wreck about him having this surgery done, so this was pretty much my reaction:

Ok, I've caught my breath. We can now return to our regularly scheduled blog post.

The surgery itself was a success, though the recovery has been hard for him.  We had heard that it was, but I don't think either of us was really prepared for just how hard it would be, and how truly immobile he is with the huge contraption that he has to wear.  Here is a shot of the brace, though you can't see a lot of it in this pic...take my word for it that it's large, makes him uncomfortably warm, and has a million velcro straps.

On a related note, we've hired Gracie as his full time caretaker.  Her requested salary was treats and snuggles, so it's working out well for everyone.

Oh and see that recliner he's in?  That's pretty much his new home.  He has to sleep IN that thing.  Yep, didn't know that until we were being discharged from the hospital!  He did try sleeping in the bed one day last week, but it wasn't supportive enough for his arm, so back to the recliner he went.  He's been doing his at-home exercises and he can start physical therapy at the end of this week, so I think he's looking forward to (hopefully) regaining some of his mobility back to that arm.  He's been working from home by having phone appointments with clients, but even with that he's going stir crazy (he can't drive until the brace comes off)...can't say I blame him! He wants to get up and move around so that he doesn't go stir crazy, but sometimes if he's up for too long without having his arm propped somehow, it puts too much pressure on it and it's very sore for hours after.  We are in week 3 of recovery, the brace stays on for 4-6 weeks, so keep your fingers crossed that it can come off after 4.

Here's the other complication that happened around the time of the surgery: 3 days before the surgery, Liam got sick.  102 degree fever, headache, chills, etc...took him to the doctor, said it was a virus that it just had to run its course.  It finally did go away, but he was in rough shape for a few days.  Brian had his surgery on a Friday (Liam's illness overlapped with his surgery), then I started to feel like I was coming down with the same thing over the weekend.  I perked up a bit by the beginning of the next week, only to have Jake come down with it.  Full-blown, fever, miserable....had to miss day 2 of the new school year. Then my mom (who had been at our house the day of the surgery and around sick Liam) came down with the virus.  Fast forward to Friday of that week and I had to leave work early....yep, the full blown fever struck me hard.  I was miserable most of that weekend.  Then poor Jake (who had been better for a few days) came down with a stomach bug on Sunday that involved puking most of the afternoon.

So if you pieced those events together, you probably noticed that there was someone (if not multiple people) sick during that entire week after Brian's surgery.  I have 2 things in response to that: first, I think it's obvious I am not in the running for a caretaker of the year award considering I was sick twice in that week period and also, we have the BEST parents in the world who were willing to stay with us and care for our sick children!!  Seriously, it was a rough, rough week and I don't know how we would have survived or who would have been taking care of Brian if they hadn't been willing to help us out.  So THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts to our parents!!

I have no idea which of us were sick in that shot above, but I'm sure someone was.  Or we were at least harboring the germs that would wreak havoc later....

That's all I have for now on his surgery, I will be sure to post an update once we know if that contraption can come off.  Thank you for all of the thoughts and prayers that people sent to us over text message, emails, and facebook messages...we appreciate you thinking of us!!