Surgery Pictures

More to come later!

Surgery Details

So JJ’s surgery was today. We were scheduled for 7:30, but had to show up at 5:30. We woke up at 4 am and left around 4:45. We got to the hospital and checked in and pretty much waited until 7 am. JJ got a purple hosptial gown. Thought it was kind of girlie, until I noticed that other little boys had the same purple outfit. Ha! Anyhow, by the time we got to the surgery area, it was a little after 7:30. They gave JJ some oral liquid anaesthetic to relax him. We said goodbye to him a little before 8 am.

The surgery lasted an hour and a half. We met with the doctor around 10 am. He said that JJ does have a second testicle; however, it is way up in his abdomen and it isn’t falling into place because there is a large blood vessel blocking the path. He put a weight on it and told us that we will be doing a follow up in a month and a half and that he will most likely require a second surgery in six months. He did say that there will be a lot of scar tissue and that he may or may not be able to bring the testicle down into place and that it may have to end up being taken out. It is way smaller than the other one anyway.

After that, we got to go see JJ in recovery. He had a gauze on his belly button, which is wear they put the laporascope. He als has two small incisions on either side of the belly button, about an inch and a half long each. He had an IV in his arm, which was covered in a washcloth. He had an IV in his foot, too, which was attached to a splint. He was flailing away in his twilight sleep.

During the almost 3 hours in recovery, JJ never really woke up, just a couple of times opening his eyes at a time. He has this really hoarse voice that sounds like a seal barking. Thankfully, he did not have to stay over night and we were able to leave the hospital shortly before one. He threw up twice before coming home (in the car, at that!)

JJ slept the whole way home and until about 5 ish. He was running a small fever and is still somewhat cranky. He woke up and stayed on the couch with daddy. He has drank about ten ounces of clear liquid today (apple juice and pedialyte). He attempted to eat a little today, but that didn’t quite work. The few grapes he ate came back up a few hours later.

He isn’t allowed to take a real bath for a whole week and he can’t have a sponge bath until we take off his gauze in two days. He has some tylenol with codeine for pain and some ointment for his wounds. We took lots of pictures and I’ll try getting those up sometime this weekend. JJ and the rest of us need to get some rest. We are sure glad to be home!

Fattening up my skinny bones Jones

So, as my loyal readers know, I have a little 19 month old on my hands with zero appetite who weighs barely anything 21 lbs 2 oz–under the 3rd percentile. I found this great recipe that he absolutely loves. It’s for homemade granola bars. Here’s the recipe.

2 cups oats

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup additives (raisens, chocolate chips, cranberries, almonds, whatever…)

Toast the oats at 400 degrees for about 5-10 minutes. Melt the peanut butter and honey over low heat in a saucepan, stirring continuously. (I added a little vanilla to the mixture for some flavor.) When the oats are done, add  whatever additives you have chosen to the oats. (I picked graham crackers crushed and raisens.) Add peanut butter and honey mixture to oats. Line a pan with wax or parchment paper and pour mixture into it. Wait a few minutes to cool and then enjoy! JJ loved them and they’re full of healthy calories.

Getting better…

So as my loyal readers know, things have busy and kind of rough around the Jones’ residence lately. I decided with the help of my husband, that if things are going to get better around here, I have to make it happen. It’s not going to just happen on its own. So, that’s what I’ve been doing. While I can’t control what goes on around me, I can control how I react to it and I CAN control making myself a better person. That being said, I’ve recently started working out again. I’ve been going to Curves three times a week and doing their circuit three times each visit, even though two times around is considered a full circuit. I’ve also been portioning my food…i.e., not eating two or three times what I should be. Speaking of food, I’ve been making better choices regarding what I eat. While we still do go out to eat, I’m eating healthier when we do. I’ve also been more diligent at my skin care routine. To be honest, these changes have not been hard at all and I’ve felt a lot better because of them. During my first full week at Curves, I lost 2.5 lbs. That was a huge motivator. I’ve been sleeping so well too…it’s been great. This weekend, I’m taking time off to jumpstart my relationship with John again. We’re having a baby-free date night AND Jj will be spending his first night away from home in his almost 18 months here.

A whole lot goin’ on!

So this past month that I’ve been back to work, things have been really busy on many different levels. As regards to work, I’ve stayed busy with good ol’ Adams keeping me there at least once or twice each week. There have been 25 work days so far and I’ve worked 20 of them (taking 3 of them off by choice.) I’ve secured at least a 7 week position teaching 5th grade at Adams, most likely starting in October. After this, I will have taught (or student taught) in every grade except for 3rd. I also recently went to a district level job interview at San Bernardino City Unified. It went really well. I didn’t even have to think about how to answer any of the questions. They just came naturally. He asked what my classroom management plan was, how I handle behavior problems, what’s one thing I’ve learned about myself, how I’d explain to a parent why there’s never any science homework, etc…He said my letters of rec were great, as well as my experience. Unfortunately, there’s only 3 vacancies at the time, two of which I’m not in consideration for. One is for a bilingual position, one the principal knows who he wants, and a third is not an official vacancy yet–but when it becomes official, he said he will send me out to that school to interview for it.

On the work front with my husband, he’s been home on worker’s comp for almost a month now. We only get 66% of his pay, which really makes us try to be frugal as much as possible. It’s trying him insane having to be at home for so long because he really wants to be doing something productive at work, but right now he can only work for about 2 hours at a time before he starts hurting. Right now, it’s up in the air as to when he’ll return, so I need to work as much as possible.

JJ and I have recently started attending a once a month playgroup. Our first meeting was a pool party. There were two little girls and two little boys. They played with some toys, then went swimming, then dried off and had a snack. It’s a really nice get together. The mommies are all from Gymboree and everyone is within a few months of each other. Next month’s theme is Music….JJ will love it!

On the medical front with JJ, we have found a doctor who is willing to work with his possible susceptibility to malignant hyperthermia. The doctor is at Children’s Hospital of LA which has extremely good ratings for the urology department. He was very friendly and I feel like I can trust him with my baby. They will be doing his orchiopexy laporoscopically (sp.) through his belly button. It’s generally an outpatient procedure, but because of his special needs re: anaesthesia, they’ll do it as an in patient procedure just as a precaution. Most likely, we’ll be getting it done in December while I’m off work so I’ll be able to be there to take care of him.

On a final extremely frustrating note, we’ve been having major issues with our car and mechanic. We took our car in ten days ago for a 90K mile service and a possible radiator leak. Our car kept overheating and it would go back to normal after we added coolant, but that would only last a couple days before we had to add more, but we never saw any on the street. Anyhow, $875 later we were told the car was fixed….and it was for 3 days. Then the overheating went from gradually to all at once–we took the car back immediately because the radiator was supposed to have a lifetime warranty. We were told that most likely we had blown a head gasket and it would be another $939 to fix?!? Excuse me…I don’t think so. We were also told that the guy who worked on our car had screwed up other people’s and the lead mechanic had to fix a lot of his crap. Well, we managed to haggle down the guy to about half price because of the major hassle. We were told the part had to be sent to a shop to be worked on which takes two days…I called back four days later and was told the part was still in the shop. I was absolutely fuming! Meanwhile, we’ve been having to have a rental car ($140 so far out the window…) while waiting for these idiots to get their job done…who knows how long it will take, but I’m getting awfully annoyed waiting for them and it’s inconviencing a lof of my family to have to drive me around everywhere. I’m going to be filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau as soon as we get the car back and I am never taking my car there again!

All grown up!

Well, my baby is officially all grown up. He hasn’t had a bottle in almost a week. Today, he had blood drawn and barely even shed a tear. I can’t believe how brave he was. He’s my little trooper. He’s still little though. He’ll be 16 months in like 3 days and he weighed 19 1/2 lbs yesterday. Well, I officially go back to work on Monday and he’ll be starting with a new babysitter whom he loves and adores.

Raising a healthy kid!

Most moms can’t get their kids to eat their vegetables without bribing them somehow. Not me. I’ve got me a veggie lover on my hands. Last night, JJ had four things on his dinner plate: ham slices, cheese, sweet potato fries, and a mixture of peas, corn, and cauliflower. The first thing he went for was the peas, corn, and cauliflower mix and the next thing was the sweet potatoes. I couldn’t get that kid to eat a green vegetable for the life of me when he was eating pureed stuff. He would only eat sweet potatoes and carrots. Now, he loves green beans, broccoli, peas, etc…He’s a veggie fanatic! He loves him some fruit too though. Watermelon, oranges, and strawberries are his favorites. Last night, I gave him the choice of grapes or graham crackers for a snack and he picked grapes. Glad I’ve got me a healthy eater on my hands. Now, if only it’ll last…

Had to call poison control Saturday….

Okay, so I wonder how many parents have actually had to do this before–calling poison control. It was actually quite a funny situation, turned potentially scary, turned not-a-big-deal in a matter of about 2  minutes. A couple days ago, I noticed JJ had a little blister on his behind. I searched for a tube of diaper cream, but couldn’t find any. However, I did notice there was a little sample pack of some Desitin. I opened it up, put some on his sore and then put it up. Fast forward to almost a day later….John and I have just woken up and are checking email. JJ comes over to my chair with this gigantic grin on his face…and white cream all over his smile. Little bugger had found the half empty pack of Desitin and was sucking on it and had made himself a Desitin moustache and beard. So I grab the pack away, thinking, “Oh crap,” and give it to John. He reads it and it says if ingested, call poison control immediately. John searches for the poison control  number while I’m having a mini freak out session thinking I’ve made my baby sick or something. John tells the lady what happened and she’s like, “It’s not toxic, wipe out his mouth and give him some water.” What?!? That’s it?!? Why does the pack tell you call poison control and get all freaked out if it’s not toxic? Well, turns out diaper cream is made of zinc oxide and zince oxide is generally only toxic is its gaseous form. Oh well, crisis averted.

To Amway or not to Amway? That is the question.

Every mom knows that it is expensive raising kids. I heard on the news the other day that for a child born in 2008, that it is going to cost 221,000 to raise that kid. When I think about that, that’s like 4 1/2 years worth of our gross combined salary! Dang, I better start making some more money. Somebody give me a real job! Anyhow, we started exploring other options to increase income and one of John’s co-workers approached him with the idea of Amway. The concept is built on multi-level-marketing and therefore, the more distributors that you recruit, the higher your income is because you receive payment from Amway based on their sales as well.

Now, in the past couple weeks, we have both done loads of research on the company. We thought that if we could build a business off of sales only that it would suit our needs better because neither one of us have a salesperson mentality. However, in order to get to the first level of bonuses (3%), you have to sell roughly $375 worth of product. If you don’t sell that much, you don’t get anything. Some of the research we found stated that the average monthly payout for all “active” members was only $115 per month. That’s gross because you have to subtract any traveling expenses or supplies you might have.

Anyhow, I’m not sure if we’ve made our final decision or not, but we are definitely leaning in one direction. The recruiters are definitely agressive in getting people to join, but it all seems too scripted. There’s an answer for everything. So, I’m wondering. Does anyone have any personal experience with Amway? I know we all have personal opinions, so feel free to express those as well!

I’m impressed!!

So anybody that knows me knows that I hate housework. When hubby and I are both working full time, sometimes the dishes can sit in the sink for 2-3 days. The chores I hate the absolute most are dusting and vacuuming–mostly because they’re so time intensive. You have to move everything away, then dust/vacuum and then move everything back. It’s tedious! Well, I have been majorly impressed with myself this summer. Our vacuum has gotten more use out of it in the past two months than it has in probably the last year (or maybe even two!). Every Wednesday is free play gym at Gymboree from 3-430 and my mother has been kind enough to take JJ off of my hands and I vacuum each week! That’s a huge improvement because usally we might vacuum once every 6-8 weeks. It happens to be a chore hubby hates just as much as I did. I’d rather mop any day of the week, but since we don’t have any tile in our home (except our maybe 25 sq ft bathroom), there’s no mopping going on! I just hope I can keep  up the vacuuming at least once every other week once school starts up again in two weeks!