One Year Later.....

Grayson's surgery was one year ago today. One year ago, I was bawling at the thought of him having surgery.....oh wait, I still do. Well, I may not bawl my eyes out like a complete baby, but I sure do tear up every time I think about it, see pictures about it, and talk to anyone about it. I think it was more traumatic on me than it was on him. He is such a strong little man. From birth, he has been a fighter, and he's been a tough little cookie. He has not changed. He's only become stronger and more of a fighter. Watch out Kaylee and Brayden....here comes little bruiser! He walks like a bruiser, talks...more like grunts....like a bruiser, and acts like a bruiser.

We thought of a nickname for months that would describe him. Sweet Pea, G-man, Sweetie pie, and Kaylee even wanted to call him Bubba 2. I veto'ed that right away seeing as how I never even wanted a "bubba", much less a "sissy"...and I have BOTH thanks to her. Those are such redneck nicknames, and remind me of "Urban Cowboy" and she ended up making those the nicknames for her and Brayden.....and they were set in stone before I could get my veto power out there!

Anyways, I promise this is going somewhere. So, we were trying to find something that fit him and we came up with "lil bruiser" from the day he started walking. If you've ever seen the show Chelsea Lately, her little person sidekick Chuey.....Yeah, Grayson walks JUST like him. His belly sticks out, his feet turn in just a tad, and he walks around like he needs a sumo diaper thingy. Well, if I were to let him walk around in his diaper, he WOULD look just like a sumo wrestler....or Chuey in a diaper, maybe.

So, back to the one year update.....

I was all sorts of sad for 8 or 9 weeks. I got in a funk around June. (That's why I didn't really blog much) I know there are some moms who can relate to this... when we celebrate our children's FIRST birthday, we tend to do a whole list of "at this time last year I was....." and fill in the blanks with...Huge and disgustingly fat and pregnant, eating my last meal, trying to find something to wear that didn't totally make me look like a walking tent, trying to keep clean shaven in an area that you haven't seen in months.... just in case today is "the day", loosing the mucus plug, feeling the first contraction...etc.

Well, in my case, I had this...
June 20th around 6am: "One year ago today, I was in labor and didn't even know it until my husband pointed out to me that while I was sitting on the toilet, thinking I had to poop and wondering what all the blood was for, I winced every 3 minutes and stopped talking to him and he was only there because I had forced him to sit on the bathtub and talk to me while I was trying to 'go'." (and in my defense, even though it was my third kid, it was my first "go into labor" experience I've ever had....and I didn't know you bled when you went into labor)

June 20th around 2pm: "One year ago today, I was ready to push him out, but I was only dilated to a 9, and had been there since noon and got stuck and his heart rate started to drop"

June 20th around 2:45: "One year ago today, I was being wheeled into the OR ready to have my belly sliced open in a mere 5 minutes flat in order to save my son, who's heart rate would not stay up, and was thanking God that I already had my epidural in so that all they had to do was inject some stronger stuff and not have to totally run a new one"

June 20th around 6pm: "One year ago today, I was holding my precious baby boy, and admiring how beautiful he was and even though I was in lots of pain, and had a constant burning sensation from my incision, I was so happy that he arrived safe and sound and he was one big 8 lb ball of oeey gooey squishiness"

June 21st around noon: "One year ago today, I was in my hospital room with my dad, who was keeping me company while Chris took the kids to a birthday party, when the pediatric Doctor came in and told me he had Craniosynostosis" to which I replied "huh?" and after getting a short synopsis of what exactly that meant, I still was in denial and said "no, he was trying to come out with the back of his head first, that's why his head is cone head on the back and not on top, and that's why he wouldn't come out" to which she responded with "I hope you are right, but I want you to get him checked out just in case" and inside she was thinking "you poor, poor woman who's just delivered a precious baby boy and is in denial of his medical condition and I KNOW I'm right....but, she IS drugged up on vicodin for her burning radiating pain from her incision so maybe I should cut her some slack and be a little gentle with the news" OK, maybe she wasn't thinking that, but she could have been. That's how I felt.

June 22nd around noon: "One year ago today, again, while my husband is out of the room getting lunch and I am left alone in my room, the second pediatric Dr came in and confirmed that he also was sure Grayson had craniosynostosis and URGED me to go have it checked out, but left shortly after and told me to call him if I had any questions (probably because he couldn't take all the tears that were streaming out of my eyes and down my face so quickly it actually resembled a running faucet)" Why is there a pattern of them coming in when Chris is not in here? Now I have to relay all this information that I only hear through ears that are water logged from tears running down my face with no where else to go, so they twist and turn and go straight into my ears because they came out too fast to run straight down my cheeks.

I could go on and on but I know I am rambling. I decided that instead of typing this post all prim and proper to make my english teacher (who's name I can't even remember) proud, and then realizing that she will most likely NEVER read this because if I can't remember her name, why would she remember mine, so who really cares if I am typing one big long huge run on sentence without proper punctuation.?,!:; I am typing how I talk and I hope you can follow along and get a few giggles along the way. It is after all, a potentially sad post that I would normally be crying over while trying to type through tear filled eyes, while trying to concentrate on whether or not I just put a period instead of a comma, and I can't focus on the screen because it's all blurry, and it's keeping my mind off of "the real reason" for this post and it's actually working to keep the tears at bay. Whew! Probably could have done without this whole entire paragraph, but oh well..I will keep it.

So, fast forward to August 8.

"One year ago today, I was handing my 11 lb baby over to the neurosurgeon to have his skull cut open and have pieces of bone removed in an attempt to correct his 3 fused sutures and have a normal shaped head, and not put pressure on his brain"

"One year ago, I saw my son in recovery and cried buckets of tears over his bed, and probably all over him too, because of his little innocent scratchy throat cry from the breathing tube being in his throat for 3 hours and he was crying because he was in so much pain, and he was so pale white because of the blood lost in the surgery and his blood transfusion takes time to turn his cheeks back to their normal shade of pink and I couldn't do anything about his pain because I couldn't hold him and I couldn't make his pain go away and he was so confused and kept looking at me like mommy, why aren't you holding me and I'm all like, wait, I need a new bucket, this one is all filled up with my tears"

Dammit....there's those tears that I was fighting back during this post and Chris went and got me some kleenex...Man, I was doing sooo good.

"One year ago today, I was broken hearted. Sad that my precious baby boy had to have this procedure done. Confused as to why it happened. Scared to touch him for fear of hurting him. But, I had to toughen up and take care of him and tend to his every need and get him back in his normal surroundings as quickly as possible so that he could heal."

One month ago today, I found this verse: “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3

Umm, hello? Isn't this like two birds with one stone? I was broken hearted FOR my son and he was wounded. He healed my brokenheartedness and he bound up Grayson's wound and he healed so perfectly. So, I honestly feel like this verse was written FOR ME, FOR US, even though it was written forever and a day ago....

Grayson is still one big HUGE ball of oeey gooey squishiness, only it's a VERY VERY freakin heavy ball. Like, probably 27 or 28 lbs, and he stole my heart, and he's a momma's boy and I let him get away with too much stuff because he is my baby and I protect him, and he knows that he can give me his pouty face and go "wa" and he doesn't even finish that word and I am giving into whatever he wants. He also knows that if he has something that he is not supposed to have, he can look at us, shoot us a sly mischevious grin and hide said item behind his back and when we go reach for it he can turn and twist his body around so that we can't reach it and then he squeals like a banshee and takes off running and we go running after him and he squeals again, looks behind him to make SURE we are chasing him and he runs faster, and we are chasing him around the house and he's really fast so it actually takes half the length of the "track" that goes around our bottom floor to actually catch up to him. Then he squeals again, only this time, it's not an excited "mommy is chasing me and this is fun" squeal...it's a loud high pitched birdlike squeal that says "dammit woman, don't take away the toy that I found, because it's rightfully mine because I did twist and turn and put my hand even MORE behind my back and you couldn't reach it" And I pick him up and hold him and try to console him and have a normal adult to child conversation as to why he can't have my computer mouse, or my iPhone and run around the house with it and he sticks his hand down my shirt and rests his fingers right smack dab in between my cleavage. And all is suddenly OK!

Yep, I have a booby baby! He can be right smack dab in the middle of Yo Gabba Gabba and totally enthralled with the show when he will suddenly realize that I am sitting next to him on the couch and he does NOT have his hands down my shirt, so he sneaks ever so quickly and quietly with his hand and puts in in the designated spot.....without taking his eyes off the TV the entire time. He is a SUPER SMART baby. He has broken every record so far that Kaylee has set for him as far as learning new things, and he is going to be the "big" little brother....I'm convinced.

Well, I'm tired now and heading to bed, so I hope you enjoy this short quick novel. I'll post 1 yr pictures as soon as I get to upload them off my camera.