Almost there...

I'm happy to say that I've almost lost all of the swelling! Wahoo! I even drove this week, for the first time in almost two months. It. was. fabulous.

Other not-so-fabulous things in the Fryburg news include my broken tooth. Yup. Sean and I had a routine cleaning at the dentist yesterday and as soon as the hygienist began she asked if I knew about my broken tooth (bottom left, second from the very back)...umm, nope! Can't say that I did know. Ugh. Later on in the day I went back to the dentist to have my implant process completed (no more flipper tooth - yay!) and found out that the broken tooth would have to be repaired with a crown. Such a bummer. I think I must have one of the world's most expensive mouths ever. But anyways....

This is the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. I'm very much looking forward to spending the weekend with my family. Sean gets Monday off and it will be awesome to have him around for three full days. Tomorrow the dogs have a vet appointment in the morning, then the rest of the day is ours. Sunday we have a graduation party to attend in the afternoon. Monday morning is a parade in downtown Miamisburg that I would love to take Cory to (but we'll have to see how I'm feeling and what the weather is like) and then that afternoon we're going to have a few people over for a cookout - nothing fancy. Steve and Rose come home today too, so I'm assuming we'll be visiting with them sometime this weekend as well.

Other than my crazy health challenges, things around here have been pretty mellow. Cory has been wonderful, running around with me (us) to appointments and having play dates with Owen. It's been weird and hot this week, especially for May, so he's been playing out back in his pool quite a bit. His new favorite toys are the hose (when it's on, of course) and his bubble making machine. I have a feeling we'll be purchasing a lot of "bubble juice" over the summer, lol.

Cory and Owen enjoying snack on the "bean rock".

Watching the bubbles....

Playing in the backyard (in the mud) at Shanti and Pace's house.

Enjoying a beautiful spring day - wearing his new bulldozer boots, of course!

Happy Memorial Day (weekend) to all...may you remember those who have fought and fallen, so that we may enjoy our lives as we know it...and may you enjoy some extra time with the people you love.

Friday!

Today is Friday. The end of this very long week is in sight. I'm seriously about to go stir-crazy. I NEED to get out of this house. It's such a restricting feeling, not being able to drive. Soon. Soon I will drive!

Cory has been exceptionally patient with me this week. He's such a good kid. We've played lots of "beans", read a lot of books and watched way too many videos. I'm not looking forward to breaking the tv/video habit once we are able to get out and about again, but for now it is what it is and there's not much I can do.

Thought I'd post a few pictures of what we've been doing (or not doing?) over the past few weeks. Actually, one of the things on my ever-growing "To Do" list has included learning to use the manual settings on our camera. It's a very daunting task, but to my delight, I've seemed to kind of almost picked up a thing or two. Maybe this could really be fun?!

Anyways, on with the pictures...

You never know where you'll find Joey.

A little bath time fun! He's so cute.

One of my most recent favorite pictures. I love him.

Loving his new bulldozer rain boots, lol. He stared at them like this for way longer than I was comfortable with. :)

Helping to plant the flowers - such a good little gardener.

A new flashlight! It makes bedtime so much easier. ;)

Hopefully next month we'll be able to post some pictures of some family fun trips! I'm not planning on staying down too much longer. I hear places like the zoo calling our names!

Sunday

Today is the last day of another weekend. Another weekend that went by way too fast. Again. How does that happen? I'm hoping next week flies by, but there's not much going on at this point.

Sean and Cory spent most of the morning and early afternoon out in the front yard, trimming bushes, planting flowers, mowing the lawn and shaping up some trees. Since my bedroom window face the front yard I was kind of able to participate through the open window, lol. Hey, at least I could feel some fresh air on my face, lol. I do wish I had physically been outside with them though. Instead, I spent way too much time and way too much money shopping online. Geesh. It was ridiculous. Good thing I bought the stuff I bought with the intent of just trying it on, knowing that I will most likely return more than half of it.

During Cory's nap I made myself stand long enough to make some rhubarb crisp with the large amount of rhubarb we got with our "Happy Box" this past week. I love rhubarb anything and my mouth was watering for this crisp. I wanted to have it for dessert tonight because Rose and Steve were coming over and bringing pizza, sort of a "going away" dinner since they are leaving for a vacation soon. The crisp turned out great (even though my feet and ankles were the size of watermelons, lol) and we had a great visit with Rose and Steve. Cory loves playing with his grandparents. They are WAY more exciting than we are.

The plan for the rest of this day is to get Sean's hair cut and to shave out some mats that seem to have mysteriously started forming on our poor REALLY LONG-HAIRED cat. Seriously, this cat has a freakish amount of long, thick hair. It's crazy. He has a grooming appointment for the first week in June, but these need to come out now. Wish us luck -- we're going to need all that we can get! I'll post pics later.

Still Healing

This momma is still in healing mode. Still swollen (about 25 more lbs. to go), so life for me has been contained to the house...for now. I can hardly wait to bust outta this joint!

Cory has been spending a lot of his time with his Shanti and Pace during the days while Sean is at work, although last Friday he did spend his first day home alone with me in quite some time (he was an angel, by the way -- it was fabulous!).

Last Thursday Cory got to go on a trip to Young's Dairy. I love that he is starting to be able to tell me about his day. Of course, I knew he went and I knew the questions to ask to help lead him along, but it's still so stinkin' cute to see his face light up when he remembers some small detail about what he did or saw that makes his face light up! Love it.

This weekend has been a busy one so far for Sean. He's been grocery shopping, mowing, doing laundry, trimming bushes, and doing all things necessary to take care of Cory. He is amazing. I am so blessed to have married a true partner. All too often I hear of other moms who, even though they are ill or recovering from something, are still in charge of a majority of household tasks when there really is no need for it. Makes me sad. I am not sad. I have a husband who is willing to pitch in when necessary and who knows I would do the same for him...well, plus I would cook too, but that's a post for a different day.

Tomorrow is supposed to be partly rainy and partly sunny. I'm hoping maybe Sean can get Cory to a park and trim the rest of the bushes. We shall see. Me? I'll probably be right here, tweaking my blogs and wasting much of my precious time surfing the net. That's what I do best these days. I've learned a lot though, that's got to count for something...right?!

Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day. I'm so happy and so blessed to be Cory's Mom. Being a Mother is a very special gift, one that I vowed from the beginning to never take for granted.

I received my special Mother's Day cards when I woke and was served a yummy breakfast in bed! Well, the "breakfast in bed" part was kind of a given because I am still recovering from my little battle with lupus episode and still can't stand for very long due to the FREAKISH amount of swelling (but that was my other MD's present...I lost three more pounds between yesterday and today!). My breakfast was one of my very special favorites: a cinnamon chip bagel with hazelnut cream cheese from Panera and a non-fat vanilla latte, no whip, from Starbucks! Goooood stuff! I also had a little homemade blueberry scone (shhhhh!). It was a very sweet way to start the day. :)

This coming week is going to be a rather busy one. I have three different doctor/lab appointments to go to on three separate days. Sean has to work (but has decided to take Wednesday off to help make the week flow easier). Cory will be here, there, and everywhere (mostly at Rose and Steve's). I am on my own. There will be nobody here running back and forth for me for the first time since before I went into the hospital.

We've enlisted the help of Rose and Steve for babysitting and shuttle services (I still can't drive...HUGE bummer!). We are also blessed to have fabulous friends who were very generous and made us wicked yummy food for the week! Kara made us tuna noodle casserole, a meatloaf and some rice crispie treats. Jen and Chris made us scalloped potatoes with ham and an enchilada dish (not sure of the technical name...will have to edit later), and some super delicious chocolate no-bake cookies! THANK YOU! Food was one of my biggest stressors because after ten minutes of standing on my feet, they do.not. move. They get as big as soccer balls and I get shooting pains up my legs. It's not a really good time. There's no way I can cook anything and we can't eat out all week...so unhealthy. Thank God for great friends. I hope someday I can do for them what they've done for us - it means so much!
Life is a bunch of ups and downs at the moment. It's been a very strange past few weeks but I'm starting to feel like things are starting to straighten out and they'll be back on track soon.

I am ready.

Three

It hit me yesterday that at the end of next month my sweet little redheaded boy will be turning three.

My 2 lb. 14 oz preemie is now a 30 lb. toddler and a very sweet one at that.

I've been finding myself reminiscing about the past three years while poring over photos to make Cory's Third Year picture montage. They went so fast. I tried to drink in every minute of it, knowing it would fly by, but I know there are so many moments that I have forgotten.

Seeing Cory turn three makes me long for another baby. I had really anticipated having another baby by now, a sibling for Cory, another sweet blessing in our family. But life had other ideas. I need to overcome my health challenges first and I have no idea how long that will take. Months? Years? Only time will tell and until then I need to practice patience and concentrate on being grateful of what we do have instead of what we don't. We've always talked about adopting a baby too and we agree it's something we'd both like to do. Recently we've been talking about it and looking into getting started with the process so we'll see what comes of that as well.

As Cory's birthday fast approaches I know there will be more weepy moments, more "remembering when" and then time will move on...and then he'll be four. Before we know it he'll be eighteen. Time really is precious and it really is something to never take for granted.

Cory is turning three?!

Catching Up

Here we go again! Another catch up post, lol. I really need to work on my posting frequency.

So because it's been three months this will be a brief summary with few random pictures thrown in.

Grammie and Grampa were supposed to come for a visit over Valentine's Day weekend. We were excited to see them but a big blizzard on the east coast cancelled their flight. No worries though, thankfully they were able to make it out the following weekend and we had a blast - especially Cory! He loves to take the pillows off the guest room bed where Grammie and Grampa sleep and run to Grampa yelling, "You got Grampa's pillows!!". Then Grampa tickles him and runs back to the room with the pillows and they wrestle and play and do it all over again. It's so wonderful to watch.







March was March. Nothing much exciting ever seems to happen in March. Cory and I continued going to playday at the Kettering Rec Center on Tuesdays, storytime at the library on Thursdays and having playdates with our friends Kim and Owen at least once a week. I really, really enjoy playday and storytime. They are part of the reason I've gotten uncertain about sending Cory to preschool this fall, because we'll miss out on those activities together. He can always go to preschool when he's four and I can never get back the time I would spend with him now, while he's little. It's a tough decision, one we're struggling with right now. I'm sure it will all work out the way it's supposed to. Grammie and Grampa also came back for another visit. Uncle Jeff got to come too! It was so great to see him. He's doing so well. I'm so proud of him.









April was kind of a wash. I got sick, missed Easter with my family and ended up in the hospital for 12 days, followed by two more plus weeks at home in bed which is where I still currently am...I'm waiting for the fifty extra pounds of fluid that I've accumulated to disappear so I can stand for more than five minutes without my ankles turning into soccer balls. I'm not going to lie. It sucks. According to the doctors they think I had some crazy virus plus an e. coli infection that made my body really angry, triggering the lupus to attack my kidneys and my liver. Not a good time. Not a good time at all. Mom came for a week and a half to help out after I got home and then after Mom left Dad came and is here now for this week. Jeff might come next week. If he doesn't, I'm not sure what we'll do. I need to be able to take care of my family. I WANT to take care of my family. They've been so patient and wonderful. I love my boys...big and little. I'm really struggling to stay positive. It'll all be a distant memory soon, I know that. It just doesn't feel that way right now.

Cory had a great Easter. It was a lot of fun to watch him search for hidden eggs around the house. He and Sean went to the Dayton Women's Club for brunch and then to hang out with Sean's family afterwards. I think they had a pretty great day! :)















There's the quickie update once again. Hopefully from now on they will be more frequent.