A Couple Weeks of Craziness

Whew, this has been quite a busy couple of weeks for us.  I haven’t had a chance to get on here and write a real post lately so this may get kind of long with everything we’ve had going on.

Jake had to go out of town for work last week, to Grand Rapids, MI to prepare a store for a corporate visit.  He left with his boss on Sunday.  They rode together because his boss was going to have another vehicle when they got there so if Jake needed a car he could use his.  Everything was fine until Tuesday night.  I talked to Jake and he told me about the meeting they had that day in another town an hour away.  He was having to get rides everywhere because the vehicle plan wasn’t working out.  He had gotten a ride to the meeting, and back to the store in Grand Rapids that he was working in.  But he didn’t know how he was going to get back to his hotel that night, or back to the store in the morning.  There were a couple girls working that said they’d take him back to the hotel but they were working overnight until 9:00 am and he wasn’t going to stay that long since he had to be back the next morning.  It was already 10:00 pm so I told him I could be there early in the morning if he needed me to bring the car so he could get to the store.  He said he didn’t think he’d need me to but that he was trying to get a hold of his boss and then he’d let me know.  He called me back around 11:00 and told me that he needed me to come up that night.  What?!?  It’s 11:00 at night and it’s a two hour drive!  So I had to pack up enough stuff for Carter and I to be able to stay for a couple days since Jake was going to be working up there until Thursday.  Then I had to load it all up, get Carter out of bed and in his car seat, and go.  We got there a little after 1:00 am and by the time we had everything settled it was 2:00.  Of course, Carter was wide awake so it took me a little while to get him back to sleep.  Luckily Jake’s mom was able to come down and get Trigger the next morning.  If she hadn’t I don’t know what we would’ve done.  We stayed until Thursday evening.  Carter was up early both days since he’d wake up when Jake got up to get ready.  I didn’t leave that hotel room the entire time we were there!  I could’ve dropped Jake off at the store and had the car but having to pick him back up at a certain time I run the risk of it interfering with Carter’s eating and/or sleeping and it’s not worth it.  I’m not really able to do a lot of things on my own schedule, it has to be right after Carter eats or wakes up so appointments are especially difficult.  But it really wasn’t any different than being at home because a lot of days I don’t leave here either.

Last Saturday we went over to some friends’ house for dinner and had a really good time.  It was definitely a nice break and felt good to socialize for a while.  Carter ended up falling asleep and going to bed in their daughter’s crib so we stayed longer than we had originally planned.  We had dinner, talked, and watched some football games.  Their daughter is about three months old and we met her for the first time. 

And then there was this week.  Jake works in retail, need I say more?  I feel like he’s hardly even been around, this week or last.  And his schedule won’t really be back to normal until after Christmas.  He’s taken the computer to work a few times so between that, last week’s trip, and being gone for Thanksgiving I haven’t had a chance to really sit and write a post.  We had Thanksgiving with his family yesterday.  Let me say, I have the best mother in law a girl could ask for.  Every year she makes me my own special gravy because she knows I don’t like the turkey “guts” in my gravy and that’s what they make it with.  Eewww!  So that was yummy.  We left soon after eating, had to get some groceries, and then Jake headed in to work at 7:00 last night.  His store opened at midnight and he worked until 7:00 am.  Then he came home for a few hours to sleep and went back in from 2:00 to 7:00.  In the few hours that he was here sleeping, Carter and I went to the mall for about 45 minutes to check out Crazy 8.  I got Carter some clothes in his next size on sale and had a 20% off coupon so it was a pretty good deal.  Just being there stressed me out though, so I got home pretty quickly.  I don’t do well in crowds because I get frustrated very easily with people around me, so this is about the worst day for me to go anywhere.   

Carter’s eating seems to be getting a little better, although not consistently.  I’ve been working on solids more and he still doesn’t want them.  He’ll eat them if I can get them into his mouth but he tries hard to keep me from being able to.  A couple days ago I had him eat most of his bottles for the day while he was awake just to see how he’d do.  He ended up eating 12 out of his 19.5 ounces that day while he was awake!  That’s definitely an improvement.  And the two bottles that he did eat sleeping he had started while he was awake and ended up falling asleep while eating.  However, the things that I have to do sometimes to get him to eat awake are exhausting.  I hold him, put him in his bouncy seat, distract him with my bracelet, toys, voice.  It’s endless!  But we’re working on it and it seems like there may be some light at the end of this long tunnel.

So I’m sure I missed several things that I wanted to write about but that’s what happens when I wait too long I guess.  I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and found a lot of good deals today if you went out, or shopped online :)  Now the countdown to Christmas begins…