A LONG Explanation

The last two days have been rough for the Fox household (thus the reason for being MIA on the 365 blog - I'm working on it today though, so make sure you scroll to see the last few days too).

It all started on Sunday. The great news is that after 11 weeks, the boys finally had their immunizations and hit the 2 month mark, so we were cleared to take them to church. We were prepared to leave early if they had a major breakdown and brought bottles with us, but neither was necessary - they slept the whole time! And boy, it was great to be back! The problem started after church when Owen opted for an eating strike. We didn't want to throw away the milk we had thawed for church, so we tried to feed him the bottle and he just kinda chewed on it. Eli sucked his down but it took Owen about 45 minutes and he only ate about 2.5 ounces.

The strike continued much of Monday, and to add to the stress of that, Charlie was to be gone from 8am until after midnight. He bought a ticket to a concert in Manhattan and was heading there right after work. That was not to be. He called me around dinnertime to tell me that the car died. Well, it overheated, then it died. He had to call a tow truck to get him back to Danbury, then we had to call a friend of ours to bring him home since I was stuck at home with two kids and our second car, that by the way, hasn't worked in months.

When Charlie got to the car place, their first question was "is this car paid off? Because it might not be worth fixing. There's a chance it's the head gasket [read: the engine]." Well, no, Mr. Firestone, it's not paid off. Shoot! So Charlie came home and got to work on the second car, which he ended up getting to run. Praise the Lord that I was blessed with a handy husband!

So luckily, Charlie was home with me Monday night instead of being gone for 18 hours straight, but unfortunately, we were both pretty stressed by the day (the car and Owen's lack of eating) and he had to work on the other car, so it's not like we had any quality time together.

Tuesday I WAY over committed myself. I had MOPS in the morning, then went straight to the mall for a lunch play date afterwards. All in all I was gone for about 6 hours - way too long for this phase of life. Thank goodness my friend Becca was there with me because she offered some advice that worked for her kids with bottles - it turns out that Owen had been refusing the bottle because it wasn't hot enough for him. So at least he ate, but he's still boycotting nursing, which is so frustrating I can't even put words to it. Last night we were invited to our friends' house for dinner, where Owen continued to screech and cry through feeding.

We had prepared ourselves for the worst with the car - $2,000+ to fix, but the problem was with the thermostat instead of the engine, so the fix was just under $600. And we could pick it up last night too. Funny how spending $600 on a car can feel like a relief!

I talked to the pediatrician this morning and she recommended trying a few new nursing positions, to keep him upright for 30 minutes after eating, and to resume the gas drops that we had been giving Owen every feed up until this past weekend. I can't for the life of me figure out why I thought it was a good idea to stop using them. It wasn't! So we have a follow-up appointment on Friday and I'll hopefully have a good report about Owen's eating habits for the doctor by then. (This is the appointment though where they are getting their other 2 shots and they are fixing Owen's circumcision, so it's going to be a rough day as it is - hopefully he'll at least be eating by that point!)

All this to be said, we haven't stopped to take pictures to post. If you're still reading at this point, congratulations, you made it to the end! If you could keep Owen in your prayers over the next few days (and me so that I might have the patience I need to handle him) we would really appreciate it.