Just keep chewing, Just keep chewing

One day Jaxon saw me chewing gum and he wanted some. I thought - lets see how he does with this. So I broke off a little piece of a new stick and told him not to swallow it. He did good for a while but the inevitable happened and he swallowed it. He LOVED it though. I always chew the Extra Spearmint kind and Jaxon said it was "kinda spicy" haha. I keep the gum hidden pretty well and try not to chew it in front of him so he doesn't see it, but every once in a while he does and he asks for it and I always think "I'll let him try it again and see if he won't swallow it". When will I learn? How bad is it that he is swallowing little tiny pieces of gum every once in a while? I hope not too bad!!!!

Addy's Little Surgery

You can't see the tape very well because it's clear - but the red marks on her arm are because of the tape, there was a lot of it :(

This is her after she woke up! She had the awesome blue bandage (that Jaxon was jealous of) where her IV was. She though it was a treat and would try to eat it all the time lol. But she was so happy!

Addison was born with a little skin tag by her left ear. We went back and forth a lot between when she was born and now trying to decide if it was something we should let them remove now or later.

The doctors were pushing us to have it done when she was around 3 months. They told us that once you are 2 months old - your body handles anesthesia the same way it does when you are an adult. They also told us that it might continue to grow and could possibly affect her hearing.

We were obviously very nervous about the thought of having our 3 month old baby put under to have a surgery for something that wasn't life threatening.

After lots of prayers and research, we decided it was best to go with the doctors recommendations and get it done.

The original surgery was scheduled for April 13th but Addy had a little cough and was congested and I felt a pit in my stomach about it so I canceled and pushed it back a week to April 20th. I didn't get a pit at all that week and felt very peaceful about it so we went ahead with the planned surgery.

The night before the surgery I wasn't able to feed Addison milk after midnight - I was however, allowed to give her pedialyte until 2:30am so I fed her milk right before midnight and then I woke her up to feed her some pedialyte at 2:00 (and she only drank 1 1/2 oz).

We had to be at the hospital at 5:30am, so Dan stayed home with Jaxon and off Addy and I went. We got there and signed in, they had to get her weight and measurements, vitals, and all of that good stuff so we had to wake her up. I was really nervous that once she woke up she would start crying because she was hungry - but she smiled through the entire thing. The nurses loved it.

The surgery wasn't scheduled until 7:30 so we had to just wait around. Well 7:30 came and went - they finally came back to get us at 8:04 to go back. The nurse just told me to leave Addy in her car seat and carry her since she had fallen back asleep. We walked down the hall and then the nurse said, "ok you see those doors down there - that is where you need to go an wait until its over. I will take her from here." I wanted to tell her that if I would have known that was how I was going to be dropping her off - that I would have taken her out of her car seat and carried her!!!! But I gave her a kiss and the nurse took her into the surgery room.

I was trying SOOO hard to keep it together. I kept telling myself that there were other people having surgery’s that were probably life threatening and here I am - upset about this. But on the other hand - my 3 month old was being put under and I was scared so I totally LOST it. Good thing it was early and there wasn't anyone in the halls. I finally composed myself and went to the waiting room where I waited for an hour (which actually seemed like 5 hours).

The doctor came in and told me everything went great and that I would get to see my baby soon! I was so relieved. When I finally got to see Addison, I almost started crying again. Her arm was covered in tape because she had the IV still in her and they needed to keep it still. She also had other wires hooked up to her to monitor her oxygen and hear rate. She would let out a little cry every now and again and it sounded different because her poor throat was hurting from being incubated. In that moment I thought - what on earth have I done? Why did I let them do this to my sweet baby?

We only had to stay for 45 mins while they watched her and made sure she was doing ok. She drank a bottle and kept it down which was good - and all her vitals were great so they let me take her home. She was a little sleepy for a few hours after - but once she woke up she was her normal happy self and I felt that peace again that we had made the right decision.

She has been totally herself ever since. She hasn't shown any signs of pain or discomfort (even though it looks pretty gnarly where the surgery was).

In the end - we are glad we went with the doctors recommendations and got it done and we are so glad that it went well and that Addy is fine!

Easter

Easter was wonderful! Jaxon got to participate in 3 egg hunts. The first was for his friend Brooklyn's birthday party on March 31st before Saturday Conference. He got to go find 10 eggs so not only did he have fun finding them, but he loved counting them over and over to make sure he had 10! The next one was our ward egg hunt and potluck. Jaxon was very happy during the egg hunt and as long as he was either running or throwing a football, but the rest of the time he was throwing a fit and crying - it was really odd and we are still not sure what was up with that... oh wait, he is 2 - almost 3... maybe that’s why? Anyway - and the third one was on Easter in our back yard. We also colored eggs the Saturday before and Jaxon loved doing that. This year he was way more into it than he was last year. It was so much fun to watch him get so excited!

The Easter bunny came too! Normally the Easter bunny comes to our house on Saturday so that Sunday can be a day devoted to remembering the true meaning of Easter and focusing on the Savior, however, I (I mean the Easter Bunny) dropped the ball this year and Easter snuck up on me so the Easter bunny came Sunday afternoon. Jaxon looked for his Easter basket and got really excited when he finally found it. The Easter bunny left the following:

Addison's Basket: Bottle, Formula (her favorite things right now!)

Jaxon's Basket: Juice, Reese’s eggs, bank (to put the money in he found on the egg hunt in our yard), card game, box of 1000 stickers, and an art box with markers, paint, crayons, posters, clay, and stickers.

Dan and Lisa's Basket: Candy and an I love you because "board" (the Easter bunny must be on Pinterest)

After our Easter dinner we were able to skype with my family! It was so great to see all of them and talk for awhile. Overall it was a wonderful day!

We are so grateful to have a holiday to remind us about the sacrifice of our Savior. It’s fun to dye eggs and get candy and toys - but we all know the true meaning and us here at the Garner household are very grateful for our Savior!

Got to love Jaxon's smile! He has been doing this smile when we say "say cheese" so we stopped saying that LOL