Last Friday at noon we headed out for the Smith family reunion in Bloomington,MN. Nicholas has never been in the carseat longer than the 2 hours it takes to get to Grandma and Grandpa Smith's house, so I wasn't too sure how he would handle it. We were praying that the boys would fall asleep after the first 2 hours and the last 2 would be smooth sailing. We were confident Hayden would be okay. After all, he's made 4 trips to Detroit. Of course, no one took a nap durning the trip. Maybe that because they kept hearing mommy and daddy gasping at all of the near accidents they saw. Apparently, on Friday afternoon signaling for a lane change means that the person signaling is moving over into your lane NOW and you better watch out. Anyway, Nicholas made it about 2.5 hours before he started to get restless. Considering this child is ALWAYS on the move, he did very well. We stopped in Medford, MN to get him some food (Chicken McNuggets, French Fries, and cookies) to distract him. Hayden's home healthcare nurse (and Nicholas's former nurse) brought some McDonald's cookies for him when she was over the day before and he loved them. He was still antsy but the food took the edge off at least.
About 4pm we arrived at the hotel and saw Aunt Brandi and Uncle Curt as soon as we pulled into the hotel parking lot. Tony checked us in and we hauled all of our stuff up to our room. Grandma and Grandpa Smith brought quite a few things for us since we had so much to bring already (diapers, pack and play for Nick to sleep in, etc). Bless them! We got set up in our room and I fed Hayden while Nicholas, Daddy, Uncle Curt, and Aunt Brandi explored the hotel.
As soon as we had crossed the border into MN, I said something to Nicholas about this being his first time out of Iowa...yay! Hey, with a life as crazy as ours, I have learned to celebrate even the smallest of things. It's always this time of year that I especially remeber our time in the NICU and look at those precious miracles of ours and think that 2 years ago they weren't even 2 pounds yet...heck they weren't even supposed to be born for another 12 weeks...and look at how big they are now.
Daddy called cousin Jessica and made plans to meet at Valley Fair. Just as daddy, Aunt Brandi, and Uncle Curt were getting ready to meet her, Grandma and Grandpa Smith arrived. They took they boys to their room so that I could have some quite time. I planned to take a nice long shower, repaint my toenails that I hadn't had time to repaint since I painted them in the Notre Dame parking lot 3 weeks ago durning our trip to Hayden retina specialist in Detroit. I also planned on returning an email to a wonderful friend I made in the NICU. She was there with her 9th (yes, she has 9 kids and is very close to my age) child. She had sent me an email earlier in the week and things have been so busy at work the last few months that I haven't had time to email her.
I completely enjoyed a long,hot shower. Quite a treat for me. As I finished painting my toenails, (I never paint my fingers anymore since Hayden has so many eye drops. I keep my nails very short now, too. I miss long, painted, fingernails) a really bad headache set in--almost migraine bad. Frustrated that my night wasn't going to go as planned, I immediately crawled into bed and had to shut off the tv. Why can't my day ever go as planned? Was I really being too selfish to want a couple of hours to myself? I don't think so. The noise of the TV coupled with the people being loud in the hall was making my headache worse. I tried to sleep but the people in the hall were really loud. I finally gave up and went to get Hayden from G'ma and G'pa's room so that I could give him his meds and hook him up to his feeding pump. Nicholas spent the weekend sleeping with his grandparents. I missed him terribly. He brings so much laughter into our lives. Like his brother, he is also an amazing gift from God. Once Hayden was hooked up, I tried to go back to sleep, but then Tony came back. He left again to meet up with some of his family in the hotel lobby. Even if I had felt better, I couldn't have gone. Someone needed to stay with Hayden. When Tony came back later, my headache was gone. So, we talked a while. It was nice, we don't get to spend much time alone together. We both really miss it.
Hayden was restless a few times durning the night, and my headache returned...AHHH! It better be gone before I get up. Saturday was going to be a busy day!
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