Our first real family Xmas

Our first Xmas as a family of more than 2 was pretty good. Most of the presents under the tree were for Jonathan of course, but isn't that the way it should be?

On Xmas eve I put him in a special outfit that was given to him by one of his grandma's and took some pictures. The outfit was a pain to get him in, but was worth it when I got him all set and ready for his photo session.

I took this one with my phone since I had troubles getting him to keep his eyes all the way open for one with my camera. I LOVE this pic and think it is one of the most adorable ones we have of him to date. Chris had to work, so he and I spent most of Xmas eve together. We didn't do anything special besides my singing carols to him that were completely horrendous since I didn't know more than 1/2 the words to any one song!!LOL

On Xmas morning I was up early and started my day with my usual loads of dishes and then thawed a loaf of bread and made a pumpkin pie. After patiently waiting for the morning to pass, it was finally time to get Jonathan dressed and wake Daddy up. He wanted to wear his Daddy's little elf onesie, so I put it on him and then laid him next to Chris for his wake up call;)

I love my reindeer slippers!!

Bubbie and I hung out in the living room while we waited for Chris to wake up enough to open presents. After about an hour of TV and coffee Chris was finally ready. He is trying to enjoy this and probably next Xmas, knowing that the days of sleeping in and getting a good chance to wake up before present opening will soon be a thing of the past.


We started with stockings, Jonathan's coming first of course. He got all kinds of little rattles, teething toys, some eating things and some cool new Winnie the Pooh sunglasses for the summer! He has 3 stockings and I think Santa, Grandma and Mommy & Daddy did a great job filling them;)

The middle dog stocking plays music and his ears flap;)

Bubbie liked all of his gifts even though he can't play with the stuff we got him or the frog stuff his Grandma Combest got for him until he is about 6 mos old. He only got to try out his new tummy time mat which he thinks is wonderful-and actually Jade and Ruby seem to like it too!!

Me likes the bright colors-oo, and hanging friends too!

Overall we had a great holiday and can't wait until next year when Jonathan will be 15 mos and able to enjoy it a little more...

Things I was told that may or may not be true.

When people told me that I would love my son more than anything I have ever loved with  depth that was profound as soon as he was born, I thought they were nuts. When people told me that after he was born, my "mothering" instinct would kick in, I thought they had been puffing the wacky tabacky. When someone told me that women who gave birth traditionally were jealous of women who had C-sections, I thought well maybe that wouldn't be too bad then. When everyone said that Jonathan would make our feeling of family stronger and more complete, I thought that our family felt pretty good at the moment.

The part about the love for Jonathan was absolutely 100% true. I look at him and I can feel deep inside a sense of pride and love that is overwhelming.

I look forward to each stage of his development as I have never looked forward to anything in my life. I worry about him when I am not the one taking care of him and want to protect him from all of the bad things in the world. I want so many things for him and wonder about the man he will one day become. I thought that I had given my heart to my husband many years ago, but I have to be truthful and say he may have gotten a small part of it, because my little Bubbie has me, heart, body and soul. I never thought I would feel anything so profound or be a part of something that changed me right to the core. I was far from a selfish person before him, but now it is ALL about him. He will always come first and I will do anything I can to make sure that his life is a good one.

The part about the "mothering" instinct isn't exactly correct for some of us I guess. The only thing that came naturally to me was the love and the part where I couldn't stand for him to be in any pain. Everything else I learned from others or from things I read. I am sure that some women have this instinct and it comes out in full force, but I am sadly not one of them. I didn't know anything about babies and was scared crapless when we brought him home form the hospital. What would I do now without the nurses and their expertise when I had a question. Thank goodness my mom was there for the first 3 weeks he was home-otherwise I would have been a total freak (even more than I am) and had no clue what to do many times a day.

The part about the family being stronger and more complete is true more than I can ever explain.

I thought that Chris and I were a good little family before Jonathan came along. If that was true, we are a better family now. Our bond to Jonathan has made a little circle of love, instead of a single line. Don't get me wrong, we have some issues as all couples do, but currently a lot of them is because I am an overprotective mother. I am working on that, but it is hard to squelch that feeling and wondering if Chris will remember everything. It truly has nothing to do with him, just me being paranoid and concerned like a mother bear.

The part about the C-section was completely false. Now I have never had an episiotomy, so I can't really say for sure, but I am thinking that it heals quicker than a C-section. I couldn't sit upright by myself, I couldn't get out of bed without having something to pull or push on. I couldn't bend over for 2 weeks afterwards. Trying to get in and out of the car to go to the hospital and visit Jonathan was a painful chore. Walking up and down stairs or walking any kind of distance at all was painful and exhausting. Showering was a 2 person job for the first week. Even holding my son was uncomfortable at best, and painful at times. I couldn't get up from a chair while holding him and I couldn't breastfeed. I could only wear clothes that were VERY loose and had an elastic waist. I couldn't sleep except on my side with a towel between my knees for 2 weeks. It is weird to feel everything inside settling back into place; for a couple of weeks after the surgery I felt off like things inside were moving and it was disconcerting. It was the same feeling I had during the surgery when they were moving things to get to my uterus and them when they had to push on my lungs to get the baby out and I couldn't breath. I kept thinking that the incision was going to pop open and everything was going to fall out. Even now things still feel out of whack. I feel like I have a bruise in that area. I can move the wrong way or have one of the animals step there and it is painful. So the myth that women who get a C-section have it easier is wrong.

The sweetness of marking 3 mos

I can't believe it has already been 3 mos since Jonathan was born!! My how time flies!! It seems like just yesterday that I was still pregnant, thinking that 70* was sweltering and freezing my poor husband out by having the AC cranked up;)

He turned 3 mos last Friday and to celebrate a little bit, earlier in the week we went to get our Xmas tree and took him to see Santa. A friend of mine, Maurissa, and her gal pal had bought Jonathan an adorable little outfit and made me promise to put him in it for his picture with Santa. While the outfit was cute as can be, trying to get him in it was like trying to wrestle a gorilla in a size small jumpsuit-not easy. But, I persevered and after some jostling and fussing on Jonathan's part, he was in the outfit and all ready to see Santa.

I LOVED the Santa they had here at the mall! He was so realistic looking!! His outfit was wonderful and the beard and hair were all his. If there hadn't been other people in line, I would have asked to sit on his lap and get my picture taken! He was such a sweet man and said that Jonathan was a handsome little man and so well behaved. In actuality he had been sleeping and we had to wake him up for the picture;) Thank goodness the people behind us were patient and allowed us some latitude to get him all ready. It did take a few times to get a good pic since Bubbie was mesmerized by the red sign for the Guess store-it was this giant red thing in a sea of monotone colors.

After we got done at the mall, we went to lunch at the restaurant a friend runs. After feeding the two of us and Bubbie, we went on the foray to find our Xmas tree. We didn't want to take Jonathan out of the car since it was FREEZING that day, so I put on my big girl panties and picked out the tree myself. Chris just helped the guy get it in the car (after they listened to me on which end to put in first) and after 3 tries we were off.

When we got home Chris and I decorated the tree and got it almost done before the little Mister wanted some food. I was so happy that Chris took such an active role in our first family day out. He isn't big on the whole Christmas thing, but knew that this was important to me for Bubbie's first one. I can't wait for next year. Chris has promised to put up ALL the outside decorations we have, including getting a long ladder and doing lights on the eaves!! He wants the first Xmas that Jonathan will be old enough to enjoy and all those after to be good ones with happy memories:)

I did take a picture for his 3 mos shot

and wished we could have gotten a smile out of him. He has been smiling so much more for about the past week and has started with the squeals of joy. He rolled over for the first time the day before Thanksgiving

I don't think I can fit that in my mouth uncle John....

and while he doesn't' do it for his tummy time every day, he has rolled over several times since and in both directions. I even recorded it with my phone so I could send a video to my mom and so Chris could watch it since he hasn't personally witnessed it yet. Jonathan has also decided that standing is a wonderful thing and he likes to bounce. For Xmas he has a tummy time mat and a jumperoo under the tree which are both things I think he was LOVE even if it might be another month before he has the stability in his neck for the jumperoo.

That's MY baby-get away!!

When we first brought Jonathan home from the hospital, we were a smidge worried. We have a cat named Jade,

whom usually just keeps to herself, and a Pug named Ruby,

who has been the baby in this family since we got her (even though Jade is the younger, newer pet) and wondered if she would allow that role to go to the small human life form we carried in and sat on the floor. The first thing she did after sniffing him was try and crawl into his carrier with him!! It was hilarious and I wish we had gotten a picture. Jade however was freaked out by his noises and movements and would run away from him for the first month or so that he was home.

Ruby has since taken the role of protector. She needs to check in on Jonathan when she gets up or when she comes in from going outside. When my Mother-in-law was here for a sewing weekend, Ruby always had to be between her dog Pepper and the baby. When we feed or hold him, she also needs to be in our lap as close to him as she can get-usually that means putting her head on his feet.

Now that Jade has gotten used to having Jonathan home, she will come over and investigate when we are having tummy time or when I am feeding him if Ruby isn't already on the other half of my lap. While I try to encourage that, Ruby has other ideas. She has started chasing Jade from the living room most of the time if Jonathan is up and if she deems it acceptable to allow Jade into the living room, the cat is NOT allowed near Ruby's boy!!

The other day we were on the floor for tummy time and Jade came in to investigate. Ruby paced her around the baby so that she was ALWAYS between the cat and Jonathan. I was sitting at his feet and they walked the other three sides of his body from right to left and back again. It was too funny to watch, but Ruby was not about to let that other animal near HER baby!! I am not sure how to correct this problem, and hope with time it will fix itself.

A Proud Day

I have had many days where I doubt my ability in this whole new Mom role....today was NOT one of those days.

I got up and made a dish to pass for Thanksgiving tomorrow, did dishes and then made chili for dinner. All of Jonathan's feedings this am went well, and we were on our way to a good day (we have so few as of late).

I got a return call from the Dr. and he said he thought it was time to put Jonathan on medicine for his acid reflux. Let me explain what this is like as a parent. Your child throws up (not just spits up) with every burp. He leaks formula out of his mouth whenever he is laid down. Sometimes his food curdles in his stomach and it is like he is throwing up cottage cheese (sorry for the gross detail). He sounds like he is choking as he eats because as he tries to swallow, some food is trying to come back up too. While he eats and afterwards, he draws his knees up to hid belly in such pain from trying to digest his food. His face turns almost purple when he is trying to fart and he screams like he is losing an appendage when he has a bowel movement. This has not been pleasant and we have tried everything else to resolve the problem. I guess we are down to trying the medicine and praying that it works.

Chris got out of work early, so he stopped by the pharmacy and picked up the medicine. Right before Chris got out of work, I had to send him a test message (I didn't want to call in case he was busy) with what I considered an epic event. JONATHAN ROLLED OVER FOR THE FIRST TIME TODAY!!!! I have been reading up on milestones that he should achieve at certain ages, and didn't expect this for a while, especially considering he is a preemie and will be behind in his development for about the first year. I was so excited that he got excited and he started smiling from ear to ear-another milestone!! Social smiling!! While he was on the floor I held the arc that snaps into his bouncy that has toys hanging from it so he could see them. He grasped the bug and held on for a at least 2 minutes-that is also a first!! These are all things I have read about. He still isn't emulating us with vowel sounds, laughing or focusing on small objects, but otherwise he is doing great!!

I am so proud of my big strong boy!! At his 2 mos Dr visit he weighed in at a whopping 9lbs, 3oz and is 21 1/4" long!! This appt was actually about a week after my original due date! Holy big baby!! We did both cry as he had to get 4 shots and I wanted to smack the nurse for using my precious baby boy as a pincushion, but I understood the necessity.....so I restrained myself.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I will be getting my camera back tomorrow.

My Wonderful Weekend

Why is it that people you don't know or barely know can't seem to help themselves from touching your sleeping baby? Don't they know that just because they look sweet while their eyes are closed doesn't mean that it was easy to get them that way? And why is it that my husband doesn't listen to me? All men should know that the mom is always right;) Between strangers and my dear husband, I was at the end of my rope this weekend.

I went with my friend Maurissa to a couple of craft shows on Saturday to get me out of the house and to maybe find some cute things for Bubbie (my current nickname for Jonathan). We went to a show in Monroe first and then to a local one down the road at a church. While at the Monroe craft show, this older woman (about 70's I am guessing) wanted to see Bubbie. I didn't really have a problem with that since it is a common issue whenever we go out in public. But then the woman took her finger and ran it down his face. I must have given her a look because she immediately apologized. I told her it was OK (even though it really wasn't), but informed her that if she wanted to "grope the baby" that I would need her to sanitize her hands. I mean seriously-I don't know this woman. She could have just got done picking her nose or eating something where she licked her fingers! On top of all the other things going on with Bubbie right now, a cold is the LAST thing I need. While we were walking around, apparently a couple was "stuck" behind us and made a rude comment about having to get around "that buggy". After Maurissa told me this, I slowed down to walk baby steps. Why do people have to be so rude? If she would have simply asked me, I would have apologized and moved to the side so that they could have gotten past us. I said this all out loud and don't think she heard me as she continued to try to get around us instead of asking.

On Sunday, I went with Chris to his restaurant (check me out) while he did an order and a store run so I could eat brunch. We walked in and there were a few people waiting to be sat as they were busy and needed to get clean tables. There was a woman and her daughter at one end of the bench and a couple seated in the middle. This bench is easily large enough for 6-7 people and there were 4 on it, but the way they were sitting left no real room for others-there was 1/2 a space at one end, a space between the 2 sets of people and a space at the other end. They saw me with the baby seat and not one of them offered to scoot over so I could put it on the bench, so I had to sit Bubbie on the floor. I don't understand where common courtesy has gone. Those people let a BABY sit on the floor, while they were all comfy on a bench. I know that Bubbie wouldn't have been more comfy on the bench, but the only place to sit him was in the direct path of the front door so he got the cold wind EVERY time the door was opened.

After I was sat I grabbed a plate and thoroughly enjoyed the buffet. As I sat there eating, one lady walked by twice asking about Bubbies and wanting to touch him. I asked her not to as it is cold and flu season. I called my mom about something, and the freaking lady that sat on the bench while Bubbie was on the floor came by and started to interrupt my conversation to talk about Bubbie!! The nerve of that lady!! I pretty much ignored her and talked to my mom a bit louder. While we were there, several people Chris works with came by to see us (OK-I'm not fooling myself-they came by to see the baby), and I told them that if they woke him up, that they would then have to work while carrying him around;) Needless to say, he slept the whole time we were there:)

My dear husband was on the 11pm and the 2am feeding on Saturday night. About 4am I heard the baby crying and woke Chris up who begged me to get up and take care of the baby. I sat up and noticed the monitor was not on and went into the room where I found that end of the monitor buried in his crib (where he doesn't sleep), a pillow on the floor, a diaper next to the diaper pail, part of a bottle on the bookshelf, and the glass of water we use to warm up the bottles on the floor. I picked up the baby and got him all warm (his blanket fell off) and cleaned up the mess. Chris had only gotten a couple of hrs of sleep on Friday night and when I asked him Sunday morning what happened with the 2am feeding on Saturday night, he said he didn't remember. He had fallen asleep and woke up to do the feeding and didn't really remember it at all. I cut him some slack for being exhausted, but made sure it wouldn't happen again.

We gave Jonathan a bath yesterday and I asked Chris to help. I told him what his part in each pahase would be:
1-be ready with the pee pee tee pee in case of fountain works.
2-hold him up so I could wash his head and back of his neck.
3-dry off his bottom half and put his diaper on.
4-hold him while I lotioned his back.
5-put his legs in a sleeper while I did the arms.

Here is how it went. Chris wasn't paying attention and almost got his chocolate milk peed in. He would have had I not come to the rescue and put my hand up as a barrier (yes, as the mom of a boy you get used to urine on your misc. appendages) until Chris got it covered. We got his head washed and the rest of the process was relatively successful, but Jonathan had a talk with Daddy about the fact that there needed to be a sense of urgency after the bath since he got chilly so quickly. Then when Chris went to pick him up after Bubbie was dressed , he grabbed his legs like a turkey and slid his hand under Bubbie's head. I started laughing and told Chris that the kid isn't poultry, but a baby and he isn't made from spun glass either. I know that soon, he will be handing him like a sack of potatoes instead of something that used to have feathers;)

I wanted to share a couple of funnies with Chris and Jonathan-the more frustrating parts I will keep to myself:)

A day of failures

Today is going to be a self deprecating day-I can already tell. I was actually in my bed for about 7.5 hrs last night for the first time in forever, but I think I actually got about 5 hrs sleep. I kept waking up listening for Jonathan and looking at the clock to make sure I didn't sleep through my alarm. Chris came to be about 3:30am and I bolted up to make sure the baby was OK and that was not the reason for his late night.

I often feel like a failure in this new mothering role and today is no exception. I woke up feeling as if someone backed over me with a Smart car (that teeny little car that is supposed to be very eco-friendly); something heavy enough to cause pain, but not heavy enough to incapacitate me.
Here is a pic of one:
(Scroll down a smidge)


My back is killing me as if I slept like a pretzel, and my ribs feel like Chris kicked me in his sleep. I know my ribs are from my fall at the hotel, but they felt better yesterday. So I was reluctant to pick up my son for his 5am feeding because of how much pain I am in. Failure #1-not wanting to pick him up and wishing I had someone else here to help.

When I found out I was pregnant, I desperately wanted to breastfeed, knowing it was the best for the baby. At first everything was going well and I was pumping because Jonathan was in the NICU and I wasn't there for every feeding and when I did try to breastfeed he just looked at me like I must be kidding putting this huge thing in his face and expecting him to feed from it. Then about a week or so from his release date, my milk supply started to dwindle. By the time my 6 week check-up came along for my OB I was down to 2 ounces a day. She gave me a pill to help me produce and I was back up to 4 ounces a day. It wasn't the 12 ounces a day I was producing, but better than nothing. For the last few days, I am lucky to get 1 ounce a day. Failure #2, pumping a pittance of milk.

When I was producing all or most of Jonathan's food for the day he was a good baby who took his feedings and had no problems with his digestion or any reflux. Now that I am practically barren, he has problems releasing gas, pooping and spits up a lot. I know that if he was back on a booby juice diet instead of formula that he wouldn't have these issues. He sometimes cries and gets almost purple in the face from trying to pass gas of any kind or trying to poop. Failure #3-being the cause of my own son's pain with digesting his food.

Chris has to work a mid today and open tomorrow, so that means he will be gone from 11am until almost 11pm and then has to be back to work at about 6am tomorrow morning. That means that from 5am today until about 3pm tomorrow, the only break I will get will HOPEFULLY be the 11pm feeding and this is only if Chris is home in time to take it. So I am PO'd about the fact that I will get no sleep and have to be alone with my son with no break for the next day and a half. Failure #4-being resentful of the fact that I will not get any sleep or me time-I am a selfish person.

These are just my failures today, tomorrow #ers 2 & 3 will be the same, but I will have new failures to add to them to make myself feel like a stinky pile of poo. I am sure this is quite normal for all new mom's, but I don't like thinking I failed at something.

I have decided that my body just doesn't like the whole mom role. My pregnancy was difficult, the whole delivery fiasco (a story for another day) was difficult and now I have booby juice issues. Why can't I do the most basic thing that women were put on this earth to do? Why can't I be part of the norm instead of being an exception? I know most of the time we want to stand out and be our own person, but this one time in my life I would have LOVED to be average.

The race is on!!

Is it just me or does it seem that everything you do as a mom is a race. I feel as if I go full steam ahead from 4:30am until about 7pm with an hour in the am and maybe one in the pm to sit down and rest. I occasionally get to take a nap for an hour or so in the afternoon, but that is a rarity unless someone else is here. I race to get bottles ready, to eat, use the restroom, do chores and especially when I am giving Jonathan a bath.

My day started at the 2am feeding where I got up and prepared the bottles (yes, he has 2-one has to have a little formula and some Mylacon to help him release gas bubbles and aid in digestion) and then had to wake my son so he could get a clean diaper and eat. He didn't eat very much, so I turned off the monitor in our room and came down to the living room to sleep on the couch so Chris could get some sleep before work. I got about an hour of sleep before he woke up crying full blast.

He wasn't really crying because he was hungry, it was because he had taken a HUGE poop!! It was horrible-here I am sporting the Popeye, barely awake, and he is screaming because his butt is dirty!! UGH! I get the diaper off him and had him held by one leg in the air (he pulled the other one from me) and as I was trying to reach across my body to get a wipe, he decided to do come feet painting in he poop. I had a clean diaper under him, but the afore mentioned poopy foot pushed it up (and slapped my hand-eww), so it had poop on both sides now and was no longer good. So after 5 wipes (which is a TON for me) I had to pop the top on the diaper pail to put the dirties in since they were grody on both sides. I finally did manage to get him in a clean diaper and replace his receiving blanket that had poop prints on it. Then he ate and passed out before the end of the bottle.

The morning went well, with me doing dishes and laundry and finishing the unpacking. I took about an hour to myself and read . I got my Moomy on and pumped even though the amount I get is a pathetic amount. In the am I leave Jonathan in his room so I can do noisy things like the dishes and not worry about making sharp noises.

I brought him down for his 11am bottle at noon since he still hadn't woken up yet. After he ate I tried to lay him in his bouncy which he wanted no part of. So since I was stuck holding him, I thought I would lay back in the recliner and take a nap too. NOT happening-every time I fell asleep he woke up crying-I think he had a tummy ache. So I held him while my bladder complained and waited for time enough to have passed to feed him again.

Today is bath day-we do it twice a week-but with the funeral and everything, he had a couple of light sponge baths, but not a full nekkid bath since last Thursday. I know-I am the mom of PigPen from Charlie Brown. So the race ON. I feed him part of his bottles, then I hold him while trying to burp him and get the water to the right temp. Then I race to get him undressed, and in the tub where his bottom will be in water. I use the sprayer on the sink like a little shower to hose him down, and if this was the Indy 500 of baths, I would win every time. I have it down to about 2 mins from the time his butt hits the water until I am laying him on his towel. Then it takes me about another 2 mins to get him dried, lubed and clothed complete with diaper.

Here is a pic from the hospital. Ignore the fat lady in pink;)

So here is the funny-he likes to pee in the bath. Almost every time I give him a bath I have a TeePee PeePee ready and I watch for him to "stand at attention"-moms of little boys know what I mean. I was thrilled to escape the bath without an incident and stopped paying attention. That was my mistake. I had forgotten a diaper and ran over to get one real quick and in the 5 secs it took me, he had started watering the kitchen floor, rug, counter, his towel-EVERYTHING. I started laughing as I sprinted over to hold his diaper over him until he was done. After he was done and I had grabbed another clean diaper, I wiped him off and got him dressed before I cleaned it up.

What is it with Men and not peeing where they are supposed to? How many times do the miss the toilet all the way? And now my son can't seem to even wait to pee in a diaper. I think between the 3 P's (poop, puke and pee) that I haven't been clean a single whole day since the day he was born!!LOL

If only he was always so sweet....

My 2 Inspriations

I had wanted to chronicle events in Jonathan's childhood for him to be able to reflect back on in some manner and after having been exposed to a friend's blog I decided to do this for a while.

When I started to set this up, I looked back at my inspiration for this digital archive, Barbara Purica. A good frien of mine, she started doing this when she moved to France and has been more involved it seems after thie birth of her adorable son, Nathan. If you want to see where I got the idea, she has some very finny stories:
http://barbarainclermont.blogspot.com/2010/11/randomness.html
She shares weekly events and I look forward to ever one that she posts.

The inspiration for the title of this high-tech version of a diary is my Grandpa by marriage who passed away last week. He was always a man who enjoyed the journey (sometimes more than the destination) and made sure that journey was everything it could be. A truly wonderful man that I feel thankful to have been privileged enough to know and whom I will miss. He lived an extraordinary 102 years on this earth and we should all be so lucky to have known love twice, traveled around the world and had so many family and friends that loved us.

For those of you who will read this regularly, please understand that they will often be entertaining, but not always and I can guarantee with an almost certainty that my grammar and spelling will be atrocious;) I am quite sure that a bulk of the blogs will revolve around crazy Jonathan stories and some will be of stupid things I have done or maybe just general ranting. But I can promise that no matter the content, each one will be inherently me and honest to a fault.

The last couple of weeks here has been a little hard with the passing if Chris's Uncle and then his Grandpa. He was away for training in Minneapolis and flew in to St. Louis for his Uncle's funeral and he was in Fargo and had to drive into St. Louis for his Grandpa's funeral. The deaths of these two men who had a great impact on his life has been harder on him (I think) than he admits.

While Chris drove in from ND, I was fortunate enough to be able to ride down with my brother & sister-in-laws with Jonathan. It was a seemingly quick trip, but with a pilot who drives 90MPH, what trip wouldn't be;) Jonathan was great and slept most of the way except when we stopped for lunch to change and feed him. We got in on Saturday night and after settling in, running an errand and eating, we finally made it to bed about 11. I was of course awake at 2 and then at 5am for feedings and then just stayed up when I put Jonathan back down at 6am.

The wake on Sunday was a bit surreal for me personally. It was the first funeral I went to since I was just a child. I kept expecting Grandpa to sit up and start talking to us. People were going up to the coffin (or is it a casket?) and paying their respects and I felt that was the proper thing to do and tried to force my feet to move in a forward manner. It was as if I was stuck in cement and my legs would not obey the wishes of my brain. I couldn't do it. I couldn't go and see a shell that was once a vital man that I loved and respected. Then I felt like I was disparaging him by not doing this. My heart was in turmoil until Chris told me it was OK not to go up-everyone says goodbye in their own way. Jonathan of course started to fuss as soon as the minister (or is it preacher?) started to make his presentation. I took him into the lobby and only went back in the parlor at the very end where I tried to go to the body. I wanted to hold his hand and tell him how wonderful he was and what he meant to me. I wanted to tell him that the kindness that was always present in his eyes made me feel more special that my own Grandpa has ever made me feel. I wanted to tell him that I didn't have enough time with even though the world had been his playground for many years. I wanted to tell him the biggest sadness that I felt was that Jonathan would never know the sweetness of his hug. So instead of holding his hand and telling him all of this, I projected my message to the heavens and hoped that he received it, that it didn't "get lost in the mail".

Since that was Halloween, we all went back to Chris's sister's house, Christy, and shared Grandpa stories, looked through his albums, and laughed as her husband scared the trick or treaters they had. After a lot of laughter and some tears, we finally all went back to our lodgings in prepartaion for the services on Monday.

I had worn a new pair of shoes (I know-stupid thing to do) and my feet were killing me, so once we got back to the room I got in the jacuzzi tub. As I was getting out of it, I of course with all the gracefulness of a ballet dancer, fell and bruised a couple ribs. It made it a little hard for hugs and for picking up the baby.

On Monday am, we all got ready and met for the last time at Grandpa's retirement village. There were so many friends and extended family, that we practically filled the ballroom. It was a lovely service, but once the eulogies started, neither Chris nor I could stop the leaking of our eyes. I was able to see Jean, a man that was part of Grandpa's breakfast club, that I like a great deal. I got his name and apartment number so I could write to him and send him pictures. Afterward, we all went to a restaurant owned by Grandpa's second wife's family and all had dinner. Jonathan was passed around of course, and everyone loved him. Memories of Grandpa were shared a few more tears shed. Chris and I were exhausted, so we said our goodbyes and went back to the room. After sleeping a few hrs., we ordered pizza and went back to bed to prepare for the following day's journey.

It took us almost 10 hrs. to get back from St. Louis, having stopped once to eat and take care of the baby. We had to stop in Findlay, OH to get my car that was at the in-laws. About 40mins out, Jonathan started crying full blast since it was about an hour past his feeding time. I had to sit backward and sideways in my seat to hold a paci in his mouth for the rest of the ride-let me just say that was even less fun than sitting so far up in the seat that I ate dash the whole ride home. It took an hour to take care of Jonathan, and then we were finally on our way home.

It was a mentally and emotionally exhausting weekend. We are all glad to be home and once again be a family.