I have decided, while looking through the pictures from last year, that I should write about 2010 and include pictures from the year…so here goes!
January brought about bed rest for me, as I barely made it out of the hospital on New Year’s Eve. I had a kidney infection and it was discovered that I also had 2 kidney stones, and with a 29 week old baby in the tummy punching the kidneys often…the Dr was very concerned that I would go into preterm labor and had spent 3 days in the hospital. It was probably the single most frustrating time in my life!
My husband’s sister came with her little family…she has a boy who is about 2 weeks older than Casey, named Ti. They love each other a lot!!
February brought my little boy into our village…Master Ryan Eugene Jordan Jr.
He is named after his father and his great-grandfather, Eugene Northrup. After a very difficult labor he was born at 1:05 pm on the 25th…at 7lbs 12oz and 18 in long. I brought him home the next day, much to the Dr’s dismay…the labor and delivery had really taken its toll on me, but the baby was fine so I brought him home.
He was held and loved by everyone, and he slept next to me in bed.
We have a dear friend, Matt, who is a surgeon who also had to come and inspect the boy, along with his dog Buddy.
March brought exhaustion…beyond all reason.
My sister also came to visit with her 2 children to see our new addition. We also discovered the enormous pain it is to have a son circumcised…holy crap! You would think that I was asking for the moon to be delivered on my doorstep with a huge bow. The OB charged $150 cash, claiming that no insurance carrier covers it…well we are union, ours does! Finally the Pediatrician said that they would do it with a cash deposit to save the time slot. I sat in the chair while listening to him scream with tears rolling down my face…I thought about my mother telling me that she went to the other end of the hospital while they did her sons…I longed for those days!!
April brought the baby shower and blessing day.
It also brought on the real depths of Post-Partum Depression, which I had since the day I brought him home, but it seemed to be the worst in April. The shower was wonderful and brought so many clothes and diapers. The blessing day brought my brother and a few of his children, my nephew was able to participate in the blessing of our little boy. It was a very joyous day for all of us.
We also took the kids to Legoland as Ryane’s sister was here with her boy and they had never been.
May brought my niece and nephew again to stay for a week, we always enjoy their visits, and Casey loves Andi so much that she calls her sister!
Dad had his cataract surgery also that month…Pirate Pa came home and Casey just loved that her pa was a pirate. We had a lot of “arrrs” that month!
June brought both joy and pain…Father’s day meant a gift for the man who has everything…we decided on a new monitor and pictures of his favorite girls.
I got all dressed up while he was at work and Angie took pictures of me, he loved them. I also went through the first gall-bladder attack of my life…HOLY CRAP!!! It is worse than childbirth, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy! I couldn’t take any pain pills for it because I was still breast feeding…the Dr tried several things to alleviate the pain while trying to discover the problem. Nothing really worked…so the pain came and went a lot.
July was an extraordinarily difficult month for our family…it got hot and we couldn’t afford to turn on the air conditioner. We moved downstairs and everyone got mad at me all the time, the gall-bladder attacks were continuing and it was discovered that I had an umbilical hernia from pushing out that boy in February.
By the time the end of July came I was done, but July was not done with us. My father got a phone call late one night telling him that his youngest brother was dead…apparently killed himself. The sorrow was complete and all encompassing.
The following Sunday was the first of August…my niece had been called on a mission to Everett, Washington and she and her family and a bunch of other family came to our house to bid her goodbye. Here we all sat at church…us, 3 of my brothers and their wives, and 13 children of varying ages. Gathered for a happy occasion, yet all still in deepest mourning, we sat together with silent tears in our eyes…because we mourn alone.
It was discovered later that month that I had Gall stones and that was what was causing the horrible pains. I had to stop breast feeding because I couldn’t take the pain any longer, and the boy took really well to the bottle I chose. And here begins my time on pain killers…things will be slightly fuzzy from here.
September brought school, Barkley, and surgery…Casey is participating in a home based preschool with several other families in our ward, it goes between 3 houses, ours being one of them. There are only 8 kids and she loves the friends.
The first Saturday in September while I was on heavy pain killers, we drove to Riverside and bought a 6 month old King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, whom we named Barkley. I have never had a dog in the house before, Ryane had never had a puppy before, and Angie hadn’t ever really had a puppy either. This was a learning experience for all of us!
After a battle with our insurance company over where the surgery would take place, I went into surgery sometime in the middle of September to have my gall bladder removed and my umbilical hernia repaired. The surgery was successful, but only just, as by the time the surgeon go to the gall bladder it had almost exploded. I had to have a drain for a day while I was in the hospital.
Because of the way it went, I couldn’t lift my baby boy for 6 weeks following the surgery.
October brought rain and the fun involved in that…especially when you have just gotten new rain boots and rain coat!
Angie’s mother also came for a visit to help Angie through a difficult time, only to have to leave very abruptly because her husband had a heart-attack at work and died suddenly.
Ryane and I went to Knotts Berry Farm for our 5th anniversary, where I got to ride the Silver Bullet, and Ryane almost threw up. I did a lot of resting while Angie and Mom looked after my boy…then came Halloween, where Casey decided that she wanted to be Spidergirl.
It was also her first year to go trick or treating, as it was our first year in the house…she did very well and got a lot of Candy.
November brought Casey’s 4th birthday, and very 1st birthday party!
She is way into Mario and so she had a Mario party with Mario cupcakes and Mario games and Mario gifts! She had her friends from school and church come and a good time was had by all…and then Angie and I collapsed!
She got a tutu and has recently been a ballerina.
We had turkey waffles for thanksgiving and celebrated the one year anniversary of the house purchase.
December brought much joy to us with Christmas…Casey asked Santa for Hungry Hungry Hippos, and Ryan got several trucks. Ryane and I got each other itouches…wow they are fun!
Then my niece and nephew came for New Years Eve, which is traditional for us. On the 30th we had a rare opportunity to take our children with us to the Los Angeles temple.
My niece, the twin to the one who went on her mission in August, got married there. My usual babysitter was also going to be waiting outside the temple in the visitors center with the rest of the younger kids, so she would be watching my babies there…we were also supposed to go on to the reception in Camarillo afterwards, but my daughter got car sick on the way up. Anyway, we were able to have our picture taken in front of the temple with our children after seeing my niece married. It was a beautiful day for us, and my little girl is still talking about seeing the temple.
So that was our year, and what a year it was…filled with ups and downs, joys and sorrows, and LIFE! Here’s to a year without death, here’s to a year filled with happy times and noodle salad!
