What's going on

Well, a lot has happened since Mother's Day.  Let's see if I can remember it all. 

To begin with, on Tuesday, I flew up to Minnesota with the boys to say goodbye to my grandmother.  It was a bit stressful at the airport, flying with both of them alone.  Thankfully, though, people were very helpful and understanding, especially getting through security.  I opted for a non-stop flight, which was a good move.  Once again, I was reminded how lucky I am to have such excellent travelers.  Ronan continued his streak of waiting to fall asleep until the last 15 minutes of the flight, but both of them were pretty quiet and well behaved.  Getting to baggage claim was more of a challenge.  I usually fly Southwest, which gets in at the smaller terminal.  This flight, though, was Delta, so I was at the big terminal and far, far, away from baggage claim.  On top of that, the little train you can ride was broken, so it was a lot of walking.  But we made it. 

Once we met up with my mom, we dropped stuff off and went to go see my grandma.  That was hard.  She was not doing well when I got there - I'm not sure she ever knew I was there.  But I'm still very grateful for the opportunity to have seen her and say goodbye.  She died the next morning, which, as I'm sure anyone who has lost a loved one who has been sick or in pain knows, was full of mixed emotions.  It's sad to lose someone you love, but at the same time, it's a comfort to know they're no longer suffering.  And, on the positive side, this allowed us to have a bit of a reunion.  It was nice to see my aunts, uncles, and cousins with their families.  There were several days when everyone was over at my parents' house and Ronan had a lot of fun playing with my cousins' kids.  He also loved playing with Grandpa, Uncle Ricky, and Uncle Eric.  As always, I was thoroughly impressed with (and grateful for) my dad's constant playing with Ronan.  My mom spent a lot of time holding Tristan, which was wonderful for both of them.  I think Tristan misses having Grandma around to hold him.  I know I certainly miss her, and especially when Tom's working, I miss having an extra set of arms around!  The memorial service was very nice and I was really proud of my brother for the wonderful speech he gave.  Once again, the service provided an opportunity to catch up with a lot of people that I hadn't seen for a long time. 

The trip home was also fairly uneventful.  Again, my gate was far away from the check-in area, but luckily this time, the train was working.  As I was waiting for it to arrive, an older woman came over and started asking me if this train went to concourse A, did I know when it would get there, was I sure it went to A, etc.  I patiently answered, even though there was an electronic sign right in front of us that had all that information and more (including a countdown of how many more seconds till the next train arrived).  She eventually saw the sign (cue Ace of Base here), and started reading to me how long we had left to wait.  Then she said, "I'm sorry.  I'm usually not so helpless, but I'm rushing home because my brother died unexpectedly and I'm terrified of missing my flight." It was a good reminder to me that you can't know what people are going through and that even if someone is being annoying, there might be a reason for it.  (Because I'll admit, I had started thinking some uncharitable thoughts before she said that.)

Now that we're home again, we've been trying to resettle into our routine.  Ronan went back to daycare (where they'll begin swimming next week!) and Tristan had his two month check up yesterday.  He's a growing boy - he's now 14 lbs, 10 oz (so he's gained 4 lbs since his one month visit) and he's 24 inches long.  That puts him in the 97th and 90th percentiles for weight and height, respectively.  His head circumference is 16 inches, which is the 75th percentile. 

The one issue I had was that he hadn't pooped for nearly two weeks.  The doctor didn't seem too concerned and suggested we could try giving him some Mylanta and see if that helped.  I went out and bought some today, but didn't give it to him right away.  This afternoon, after Ronan had gone down for his nap, Tristan was finally sleeping in his swing.  Suddenly, he began crying, so I picked him up to go change him and headed into the kitchen to grab the Mylanta.  As I was walking back to his room, I noticed a smell and began to wonder if the dogs had pooped in the house.  I should have realized that the smell was traveling with me.  But the confusion was cleared up as soon as I set Tristan down - the Poopocalypse (or Poopaggedon, whichever you prefer) had occurred.  Two weeks worth of poop - no diaper could have contained it.  As he lay there, the entire bottom half of his body covered in it, I stood helplessly holding a tiny wipe, which was about as useful as a straw to bail out the Titanic.  I quickly recognized defeat, took the changing pad cover off and used that to wipe off the excess, threw everything into the diaper pail (he was wearing a cloth diaper at the time) and gave him a bath.  The whole time, I was giving thanks that this did not happen on the plane, which had been a persistent fear for me. 

So that's the excitement here.  Not sure what that says about my life, but you take what you get.  So on that lovely note, I'll leave for the evening.  Enjoy!