April 28, 2007
Well, WE HAD THE BABY!!! Some of you may have already gotten the initial email sent from Erik last week but for those of you who did not…..
Evan Tyler Sheldon was born by c-section on April 24th at 11:32 am. He weighed 8 lbs 10 oz, and is 21 inches long. He had a head full of brown hair (which none of my other children had). I was originally scheduled for a c-section on April 30th but I started having contractions on my own on the night of the 23rd and by 1am on the 24th, I went into the hospital to get it checked out. They tried to stop my contractions using Demerol, Phenergan, and a sleeping pill but it didn’t work so my doctor decided to do the surgery that morning. He was born at 37 weeks which is considered full term however he had problems with fluid on the lungs and a high respiratory rate (80-100 breaths per minute) plus he couldn’t keep his blood sugars above 40 so he was placed in NICU for half the day on Tuesday. By that evening, after having IV antibiotics, his breathing straightened out and he was placed back in the regular nursery. We stayed until Friday due to some pain issues I was having and also due to him losing 9.3% of his body weight. He came home weighing 7 lbs 13.6 oz. Then today (Sat) in the office he is 7 lbs, 10 oz…but the doctor says he looking attentive and is ok with the 1 lb weight loss at this time as long as Evan continues to eat. I have to say that working on the same OB unit that I delivered on in a smaller hospital was a blessing. I received the V.I.P treatment and had visitors rotating in our room continuously from employees in the lab, to the director of Surgical, Director of Case Management, nurses from other units, and even the Chief Nursing Officer. The nursing staff on my unit was amazing and incredibly supportive. I couldn’t have asked for better care. I was even treated to afternoon ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery and Starbucks in the morning for breakfast! Talk about spoiling a patient! The kids are loving having a new brother in the house and Braden is so helpful and acts so grown up now (except he’s still not potty trained.) Jaelyn and Avery have been my extra set of hands since I’m unable to get up and down like I wish I could due to my c-section incision. Everyone is working as a team to make these first few weeks go smoothly. Erik has been wonderful and a huge help to me. He is running the show! I’m blessed to have him!
October 19, 2006
We ended up with 10 inches of rain Monday! And then yesterday it started raining again and looks like it could continue today. Lots of flooding around Houston. We are ok for right now though. Dad brought up a good point, no wonder homes don’t have basements in Houston! We’d all be flooded out by now. Avery had his conference Monday during the storm which was fun getting too and getting home from. If school was to end today, he’d already be making high enough scores to pass. He’s reading 4th grade level. I keep wondering if holding him back because of his birthday and the fact he is a boy was the right decision or not. He keeps saying, “Mom, I should be in 3rd grade!” He should actually and I’m confident he’d be doing well there too but I think it makes him feel extra smart this way and we made the decision back when he was 5 to hold him back based not on his academic readiness but based on how he will be in his adolescent years. So I live with my decision. Jaelyn has her conference at 1:45 today. Kids actually get out at 1 and I promised them a trip to the library book fair as a reward for their hard work this first semester. Jaelyn has a loose tooth! She has been wiggling it and wiggling it, she says it hurts. When I told her it hurt because it was loose, she lit up and said, “Mom! Thanks SO much for telling me I’m going to lose my first tooth!” She’s pulled out the tooth fairy doll and has the little tooth bag ready for her big moment! I’m really excited for her. A few months ago, Avery asked me if the tooth fairy was really real. I asked him if he liked getting money from the tooth fairy. He said yes. Then I said, “Avery if I were you, I would continue to believe it is true so you continue to get paid for your baby teeth.” He dropped it after that. I just hope as he finds out the truth about certain childhood imaginary figures like the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, and the Easter bunny, he doesn’t break the news to the rest of the crew. As for Braden this week, I think the time has come to start working on potty training. I’m sick of changing stinky diapers and I keep telling him he needs to pee in the potty but I don’t have a potty chair for him to pee on. So we are heading to Walmart soon and we are going to get one and start this process. I’m not sure if he’s ready or not but I need to at least try. Avery was 3 1/2 when he finally was trained, thanks to Erik and some strict ultimatums. But he was trained in a weekend. It just would be nice to get Braden out of diapers by the time the baby comes.
I’m sorry I haven’t posted photos in a while. All my photos were downloaded on Erik’s computer so he has access to all the photos on the laptop. If he ever brings it home and I remember, I’ll post some cute photos of the kids playing soccer. If you want to see our pumpkin this year, goto esheldon.blogspot.com.
August 14, 2006
Avery is officially a 2nd grader and Jaelyn a kindergartener
Avery’s now a “bike rider”
Jaelyn at her desk at Open House last Thursday
Our tradition growing up was to take first day of school photos on the front porch. So I now keep that tradition alive with my own kids. Avery rode his bike to school today but forgot his bike lock so we had to take it home with us so it wouldn’t get stolen. We walked Jaelyn into her classroom and she was super nervous! She wanted me to stay in the back of the room until they were about to start. I stayed about 10 minutes and then waved to her letting know I was leaving. She had an awesome day! Did crafts, sang songs, met new friends, went to the library, ate lunch in the lunchroom, all the fun stuff kindergarteners do, except take a nap (which she was glad!) They go from 8-1:50p. The older kids go from 8-3:20p. I think they let the kindergarteners out earlier because those parents don’t know how to obey the traffic plan. When we were leaving the parking lot, there were 2 moms outside of their cars yelling at each other over the traffic plan (one was going the wrong way and the other was telling her about it!) I thought it was going to actually come to punches. The lady in the wrong was torked off for getting called out on it.
We dropped the kids off this morning and then took Braden out to breakfast at IHOP and then to Wally World to get a new bike. He was spoiled!! He still can’t peddle but it’s so cute to see him on that little Huffy! Also, I had to include this photo of my coppertone butt baby! It’s too cute to not share.
March 6, 2006
February 28, 2006
Avery told us this morning that he is going to another teacher’s room to take some tests. This is the testing for the WINGS program that we nominated him for. I’m glad to hear they are starting the testing and they didn’t tell him what it was for. He said the book is 90 pages long! Also he said it was challenging which I’m pretty sure he enjoys. Some kids get so nervous and anxious about it but it doesn’t seem to make A that way. The WINGS program is a talented and gifted program in our school district for 2nd-5th grade.
Kim has been working with Jaelyn on letter sounds. She sometimes doesn’t recognize some letters and certainly has no grip on sounds yet. Maybe preschool could have worked with her on that had she actually gone to a program but hopefully in the next 6 months before she’s off to kindergarten, she’ll get better at it. It’s not like she has to know how to read the first day of school anyways. She’s loves to draw. I have to actually limit how many pieces of paper she can use in a day because she steals my printer paper and leaves pictures and “books” that she’s made all over the house. It’s cute to help her put one of her “books” together with the stapler and hear what story she has come up with in her head. She’s definitely creative.
Braden is Braden. He’s so funny. I can’t believe how a baby can have a sense of humor at this age but he does. Out of the blue he’ll say, “Mommy, knock knock.” Then I say, “who’s there.” Then he says, “poop” and laughs his head off. I don’t get where he got that from but somewhere along the lines, he thought it was funny and now says it all the time. He’s curious about everything. Likes to figure out how things work.
We got another letter from the little girl and her mom that we sponsor in Zimbabwe. The mom sent us a very nice letter saying how thankful she was the Bridget got sponsored so quickly. It’s been good for our kids to hear the letters and understand why it is we give to World Vision in the first place. It’s been fun for them to know they have a “sister in Christ” out there all the way across the world.
I have this coming weekend off. 4 days in a row to be exact! I only have 3 weeks before my sister flies into town. I’m so excited to have her here for a while. We have lots of catching up to do. I can’t believe tomorrow is the first day of March either. We’ve been Texas residents now for almost 8 months.
For some reason, Erik and I had a conversation last night about where we wanted to be buried if one of us dies. We never did really come to a conclusion. He said he wouldn’t care because he’d be dead. I told him I’ll cremate him and put him on the mantel. We joke now but someday we may have to face that decision and I’d like to sort of know what our plans/wishes are. He thinks he’d stay in Texas with the kids, mostly because his mom is here and she could help with the kids. Plus he loves his job. I think I’d move to Marshall and live with my parents with the kids until I figured out what to do. But where would we want the service to be? I’d want to maybe have it in Des Moines. If you have to fly a dead body back on an airplane does it cost the same as a ticket? I guess this is morbid to talk about but one nevers knows when their last moment on earth could be so it’s good to be prepared and discuss this stuff with your loved ones. I took care of a lady with end stage liver failure this weekend. She was only 56 and her daughter was in her 20’s. I saw how unprepared this girl was as she was starring death in the face and was having to deal with insurance companies, nursing homes for her mom. It wasn’t like she didn’t know it was going to happen soon, it was that she wasn’t prepared. But can anyone really be prepared for the loss of a parent or anyone they love? Then down the hall, another mom is also towards the end but her daughter is at peace with it. It was just eye opening for me. Most times we are scared to talk about death, even Christians. I think death is a part of life. I think you can find peace in it if you know Christ. Death can be peaceful and a beautiful thing. It’s sad for those left behind too soon, or unexpectedly. But in some cases it’s an end to suffering, like in these 2 cases this weekend. Since we are on the topic, I highly suggest that people get their end of life wishes written down and handed out to family that may someday be faced with difficult decisions. We had another case this last month where the patient had a living will and because she was in a confused state, the family had the decision making authority. They decided that they wanted everything done for their mom because they didn’t want to have that guilt for not trying everything possible. The mom specifically had written that she didn’t want anything done. But somewhere in that document she drew up years ago it stated, “if I’m deemed mentally unable to make decisions for myself, I will leave it up to my family.” So it was sort of a touchy thing. She didn’t want to be kept alive. That was her wishes when she was alert and able to decide that. I don’t feel it was fair for them to take that away from her in her dying days. All I;m saying is have your ducks in a row today because God may come for you tomorrow.
