Spiders are so nasty.

Ok, we live in what I not so fondly call the "Shit Shack". It was only supposed to be very temporary, but our stay has been drawn out. We moved back up here from SW MT, and we didn't have a place to live. We looked for places to rent, but everywhere was way to expensive for us at the moment, and it's damn hard to try and find a place that'll take two dogs. That and we were going to build a house, but we backed out of that. Anyways, long story short, we moved into the back garage turned apartment behind Leonard's parents house. My BIL and SIL lived in this thing for four years, and I don't know how they did it. I'm about ready to take the .38 and shoot myself in the head. (Which I would NEVER do, I'm just exagerating.) This shack is seriously 400 sq ft. The yard isn't even fenced, and my dog Duke likes to wander out of the yard and go visit the neighbors if he's not watched. So the dogs are basically stuck in the house with me unless I go outside with them. It was hard to do in the winter with a newborn-4 month old. It was way to cold to take him outside with me in the freezing snow. So, anyways to get back on track. This place used to be a garage, and then Leons Great Grandma needed somewhere to stay, so they made this place into a servicable apartment for her. It's not well done as my FIL is not a carpentar, and my DH who is a carpentar was only 11 or 12 at the time, so he was no help. In the closet, between one of the walls and the floor is a 2 inch gap where dirt comes through. Yep, dirt. And on that wall outside is where my FIL keeps his wood pile. Needless to say it's a spider haven. I was just typing a bit ago and a fucking spider was all of the sudden floating right in my face. I freaked out of course, and Matt just had to happen to be sleeping. Good thing I didn't wake him up with my screams. I've already killed two spiders today, and 4 were killed yestarday. I can't wait to get out of this friggin place, I hate it so so much.

Why do I hate it?

• Nowhere to put anything. So we have piles of shit just laying around because there is nowhere to put any of it. This is one of my main reasons for hating this place.
  
• Our poor dogs are stuck inside. Now that it's nice, we go outside for an hour or so everyday so they can run and play and get some excersice. It's super crowded in here with 2 adults, a baby and 2 dogs.
  
• The spiders of course. Disgusting.
  
• It's hard with Matt. He didn't get to spend much time on the floor when he was little because it was so nasty. Even right after vacuuming he and his blanket that he'd be lying on were covered in dog hair. That, and I was afraid that they dogs were going to step on him because of the minimal space. So since he didn't get to spend time on the floor on his tummy, he hates being on his tummy.
  
• The place and the yard look like trash. DH's dad and his mom are total clutterbugs and like to collect useless shit and never get rid of it. So the yard is full of shit that is rusting and never getting used. I feel embarrased everytime I walk into the yard and into the shack if there are people in the yard visiting Leonards useless sister who is 27 and still lives at home with her two kids. Speaking of uselss sister....I'll get to that later.

The good things about this place:

• Free rent although we do help out on utilities. Ex. we are paying this months $300 electric bill because FIL has not paid it for 2 months. *eyeroll*
  
• Although we are in the back yard, FIL and MIL don't come knocking on the door all of the time. They respect our privacy and I like that. Although I do feel bad for Matt, because they never come out to see him. We always have to go inside (which is so disgusting I puke in my mouth everytime we go in) so that they can see him. I decided that if they want a relationship with Matt, they can come out and see him. It's not sanitary and good for his health to go inside to see everyone but once a month. (Totally another story)
  
• Not really relevant, but the grocery store and the post office are really close. Matt and I take a walk to go get the mail every day when it's nice out. And if I only need a couple of things, I'll just put Matt in his stroller and we'll walk to the store. And my sister is close also. She's next to the store.

So the cons are more than the pros. I can't wait to get out of this shit shack.

Baby numero dos

On the way home from camping the other day, Leonard and I got into the talk about babies. I of course wanted to be pregnant again the moment after I delivered Matt. Leonard on the other hand said that he was happy with just Matt, but would have another just to appease me. Since he has been hired on with the railroad, his job is steady and good. We have AWESOME health insurance that would make any other person jealous, and there is no way that his job will be affected negatively by the economy. It will actually get better as the economy goes downhill. How ironic. Anywho, those are ideal financial baby making conditions for us. So as of right now, we are not really trying but not really preventing. We will get serious around Matt's first birthday. That way if I got knocked up around September, Matt and numero 2 will be almost two years apart. I think that's a good gap. The only thing that I'm afraid of is what if it takes as long as it did to get pregnant with Matt. It will suck, but at least I have my little peanut to love and be thankful for. My heart goes out to all of the women out there that aren't as fortunate as me to have a sweet baby to love. I pray that they all get their dreams.

Camping

We had a great weekend! Full of family,friends, water, sun and roughing it out in the woods. It was Matt's first camping trip, and I say that we were pretty brave taking him out a mere few days after his surgery. We had a rough night, and according to our friends who were in our camper with us, they are never going to have kids, he he. Poor Matt was up 3 times the first night we were there. I think coupled with a sore mouth and waking up to new surroundings kind of freaked him out. He did much better the second night and only woke up once.

I was also my first time wakeboarding in a year. I couldn't do it last year, as I was baby baking. It took me a few tries to get up, but I did. I crashed a few times also. Great fun. The water was freezing, but after you were in it for a few minutes, you got used to it of course. I wish that Leonard was on the boat and taking some pictures of me, but he was on land watching Matt while I played. Our dog Jack also thinks that he's a baby-sitter! As I was on the water, Matt played in his carseat, and Leonard said that as soon as I had left, Jack plopped himself right next to Matt and didn't move an inch the whole entire time I was gone. I always knew that he'd be a protector to Matt.

Some toast

I was taking some pictures of Matt the other day while he was enjoying some Zwieback Toast, and came across this picture. Isn't it the best?

Recovering.

We are finally done and over with surgery #2. What a relief! I was not looking forward to this surgery at all. I thought that it would be harder on Matt and that recovery was going to be a bitch for him. He had ear tubes placed and his cleft palate was repaired the rest of the way. It's a good thing that the tubes were placed when they were because Matt was on the verge of a double ear infection. The ENT that placed the tubes said that he had a ton of middle ear fluid and there was a ton of inflammation in the tissue. Matt had started to pull on his ears a little bit on the way down for his surgery. Good timing I guess.
Dr. Hardy who is the plastic surgeon that did the repair said that he thinks that this should be Matt's last surgery. But we'll know for sure when we do a follow up in 4-6 weeks. I'm hoping a praying that this is the last one.

I looked in Matt's mouth after the surgery when he was crying, and he actually has a normal mouth. I was so happy for him! No more gaping hole in the roof of his mouth, no more tethered tongue. He'll actually be able to breath with his mouth shut. He was crying and I couldn't believe that he actually had some snot running out of his nose. I've never noticed it, but he's never had that. It's always just run into the back of his throat and not out.

Recovery has been hard, but it's much better than the first surgery. For his first, he couldn't even take a bottle and eat almost 48 hours after his surgery. This surgery, he was eating from his bottle a few hours after his surgery. And the first time around he was having a really hard time keeping his O2 levels up w/o the help of some oxygen. This time he had no problems, and his O2 levels were at or near 100% right after surgery. Sweet little boy. Again, we have the help of Lortab for Matt and use it when needed. There's no need for him to be in pain when he doesn't have to be.

He also surprisingly hit a milestone after his surgery. It was probably 8 hours or so afterwards. My mom was rubbing Matt's foot and he looked at her and started to point at her with his index finger. Then he found me and pointed at me. It was so cute! Here are some pictures of him the day after his surgery waiting to be released and playing with some toys.






I also forgot to mention that we have not one, but two teeth now! His first popped in the weekend before last, and his second came in a week after. He's growing up so fast.

A video of Matt

He loves his walker! He does a much better job when he's off of the carpet of course.

If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes.

They have a saying in Montana that if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes. And that proved true yestarday! It actully snowed in June. It's not unheard of, it just doesn't happen very often. I think the last time that it snowed in June was in 2001. It snowed all day yestarday. So much that when I went to leave to go to my parents, I had to bust out my car sweeper and sweep the snow off of my car. It finally quit late last night and now it's raining. But it's still cold out. I think it's only in the high 30's right now and it's almost 11 am. On Friday, it's supposed to warm up finally. By Saturday, it's supposed to be in the mid 70's. Crazy June weather.

Big Weekend

Although the weather was crappy, we had a lot of fun! Leonard and I dropped Matt off at my parents so they could baby-sit, and we went to pick Morel Mushrooms at one of the sites of the recent forest fires that we had last summer. I hate mushrooms, but we had a blast tromping through the charred trees and wet grass looking for these mushrooms. We weren't aware that you had to have a permit to pick them for personal use, so thankfully some nice guy let us know that the Forest Service was behind us checking for permits. So we left before we could get caught. I was surprised at how much fun that I had. We are going to get a permit and go out next weekend I think.

Matt outgrew his Jumperoo. He was totally over it. He'd cry everytime I even tried to put him into it. So we took it apart and stored it at my parents house. Then we traded the Jumperoo for a walker! Matt LOVES his walker. It finally just clicked that he could walk in it and get into anything and everything. Before he'd walk just a little bit in it. But now he really goes! He's so adorable in it.

And, other exciting news, we got our first tooth! Leonard noticed it before I did. There is a slit in his bottom gum and you can just see the tooth. You can also feel it if you run your finger over his gum. It must still be tender, he really puts up a fight if you try to do it. The tooth explains why the little bugger wouldn't go to sleep the other day at all. And why he was so fussy. Poor sweetie. At least he feels better! He's actually sleeping right now, and has been sleeping for almost 2 hours. What a nice break for me.

The baby is sleeping.

I'm taking advantage of the precious time that I have right now to do a little blogging and get the dishes done. I think I'll blog first. I loathe doing dishes. Still raining here. We really needed the rain. Maybe it'll end this 7 yr drought we've been in. The snow pack is higher right now than it's been for a long time at this time of year, which is amazing since it is June. I'm waiting for the sun to shine and the weather to get up to the eighties so I can get Matt into his new baby pool that he hasn't been able to try out yet. Hopefully soon.

My poor brother. I feel so badly for him. His new wife is pulling all sorts of shit on him and is really messing with his head. Long story short, only have been married for 3 months, have known each other for a little over 4 months total, and he is in the AF, and she has just been discharged. She keeps saying how she doesn't want to go and see him (they are in different cities in TX), and how when he gets based in Utah, she wants to live with her parents and go back to the dating stage and not live with him. WTH is up with that? I wrote my brother a long message on his Myspace, just venting my frustrations out and letting him know how our whole family feels. He called me last night after he read my message and told me that they are going to work it out and that she's going to straighten up. We'll see. She supposedly was going to straighten up a few weeks ago when she first starting pulling this crap, and she just got worse.

Only twelve more days until Matt's surgery! The time goes by super fast when you have a big event coming up that you aren't really looking forward to. I'm excited to have the surgery done because then Matt will no longer have a cleft palate, and that means no more formula and food coming out of his nose. Poor little guy threw up last weekend and the majority of it came out of his nose. It must have really really burned. He cried for probably 20 minutes and was inconsolable. My poor sweetie. I'm also looking forward to his surgery because of the ear tubes being placed. It'll be interesting to see how it helps his hearing. He can hear, I just don't think his hearing is absolutley perfect. Maybe he'll start talking more. I'm hoping!
What I'm not looking forward to is the pain that he'll be in. After his first surgery, he couldn't eat anything for a day and a half. The hospital totally dehydrated him also. I think we used one or two diapers the whole entire time we were there. I think this time I'll let them know how dehydrated he got last time. It took a good two weeks to rehydrate him after that. Especially since he had such a hard time eating anything. I just wish that Leonard could go with us. He isn't able to get off of work for it. At least my mom will come down with me and stay in the hospital with me. Thank the Lord for moms!