New Car

Look familiar? You go with what you know and love! Yesterday we headed over to Crystal Lake Toyota to see what kind of deal with could get from the guy that sold us Mike's Highlander. Our intention was to get a quote on a used Corolla, but the guy gave us such a smokin' deal on the new one, that it made much more sense to buy new. I'm really happy with it, and I already feel comfortable driving it, so I'm glad to have this car situation off my shoulders! Andrew came with us to buy the car, and he was such a good boy! He ran around the dealership laughing and visiting with the employees. As far as the insurance goes, our insurance company talked to the guy that hit me, and he is now saying the accident was due to a light malfunction on his end. Give me a break! I'm just hoping this all ends smoothly, and everything stays 100% his fault, because there is not one thing I could have done to avoid the accident.

One other discouraging thing that has come of this is the accident flared up the two bulging disks that I have been dealing with in my neck these last few years. The day after the accident, things started to grow from bad to worse in my neck. I was literally taking 8 to 10 ibuprofens a day, so I called my doctor's office 5 days in to tell them about the pain I was having. The nurse told me that any kind of whiplash could cause some swelling, which results in the disks rubbing on the nerves. They prescribed something to reduce the swelling, and this is the best my neck has felt in 5 years. I took the last pill yesterday, so we will see if all comes back. I have my fingers crossed, because I have been managing the pain since I had the botox injections in my neck almost 3 years ago. I don't need to spend any more time at the pain center. I have enough to worry about right now!

Andrew and Mommy Week

Oh, I have had such a wonderful week off with my little buddy! Lauren is on her honeymoon this week, so I took off the week from work to watch Andrew. He has been so much fun to be with, and I am going to be sad to lose time with him when I go back to work next week.

On Monday, we went to the mall to see the Easter bunny, shop, and get a hair cut. He wasn't too sure about the bunny, and it looks like he has a half-cry/half-laugh going on.

The hair cut afterwards did not go bad at all! The lady was really good with him, and even let her play with her watch while she cut the front of his hair. We came home, and he was happy to have some cheez-it's, which may be his new favorite food. He saw mommy eating some a few days earlier, and he decided those were pretty good!

A lady at J.C. Penny gave us some bunny ears as we were walking thorough. I did not put them on as quickly as he wanted me to here, because I was trying to take a picture.

However, he quickly cheered up when he tried to put them on the dog instead...

We spent quite a bit of time outdoors this week, and he has been enjoying the tulips at the back of the garage. For the last 3 years, we have only had purple tulips; however, this year, we had one yellow/red one, which I told Andrew was a special tulip from Grandma Darla. :)

After coming inside, he spent some time throwing balls for Jez and admiring his picture with the Easter bunny.

After his bath, he was VERY happy to see me wearing those bunny ears!

On Tuesday, we headed over to my dad's to let the dog out and play outside for a while. That was really fun, because there was endless yard for him to play in, and I didn't have much to worry about. Dad now has the house on the market, so we are waiting for some bites. He has had a lot of interest so far, which is good! Tiki is still struggling a bit being there alone all day and is still chewing up things. Hopefully when dad moves closer, I can go over there and play frisbee with her during lunch.

On Wednesday, I took Andrew over to a bouncy house place in town after putting up some Easter decorations at the house. He was a little hesitant in the bouncy and preferred to hang out by the Mickey Mouse video game or push the baby walkers around.

On Thursday, we headed over to see Peyton and Kaden for a while at Tammy's house, and he had a great time. He even drove through some car lots with me on the way home. Today we just hung around the house, and Mike's mom came over in the afternoon to watch him while Mike and I started the car search. BIG headache by the way. The last day for my rental car is this Monday, and we are running out of time. They totaled my car out at $9150. We may go look at a used Toyota in Crystal Lake tomorrow, but we'll see. If we need to pay out of our own pockets to have the rental a few more days, we will. We just don't want to have buyer's remorse. I'm sure I'll have an update in the next day or two.

Elmo!

Doing sooo good with his fork!

Date with the Ladies

I am a little behind with this blog, but since the car accident was on my mind, I blogged about that last time. The Tuesday evening before the accident, I brought Andrew over to Andrea and Bryan's house to play with Bella and Kennedy (such sweeties!). I felt terrible, because we were an hour late, because Andrew took an afternoon nap that ran over. He very rarely takes an afternoon nap, and we put him down at 2:30 to see what would happen. He fell asleep, (very rare!) and I ended up having to wake him up at 4:30, which he was not happy about.  However, when we got there, he was excited to see so many new toys, play with the girls, and eat pizza (he really likes pizza). When the pizza man delivers pizza, he hangs on your leg whining and then runs to the high chair even if he just ate. We eat way too much pizza. Anyway, here is a pic of him with the ladies wearing his "Certified Hunk" shirt. It was also a little funny, because he just pooped his pants right before this picture, but Bella didn't seem to mind. That's what hunks do!

A little later, Bella went to the bathroom, and peeked her head around the door to wave at Andrew. Andrew smiled back, and she came out of the bathroom wearing only a shirt and hugged him. Andrew had this cute little grin on his face, and Bryan came over and told him to watch himself, which was hilarious. We had such a great time, and we are hoping we can get together more often now that summer is approaching. So much fun!

Car Accident

For once I have a story (albeit not a good one!) about me instead of Andrew. When I was coming home from lunch yesterday, I ended up getting hit by a guy that turned left in front me. I was going straight through a green light, and he thought he had a green arrow to turn left onto I-90, so he ended up turning when he should have been yielding to me. As I came through the light, and I saw him start his turn, I slammed on the brakes, but there just wasn't enough time. He hit my driver's side door (in a Suburban!) and I hit the guard rail on my right. I will never forget the sound of the crash when he made impact. It was just horrible. After he hit me, I felt two other hits, and I was just praying it would all end. I had my foot on the brake the whole time, and once it all ended, my car was still moving forward. I put the car in park and then brought up the parking brake, and I stopped rolling after a few more seconds.

There was a girl behind us that called 911, and the guy that hit me came up to the window. He worked for ComEd, and was working a shift when the accident happened. The door would not open, so they helped me out of the passenger side. My phone, which was on the passenger side seat, was missing (later found it under my seat), and the sunglasses I was wearing were on the floor of the passenger's side. The guy that hit me apologized over and over again, and I actually felt pretty bad for him. He said he thought he had an arrow, but realized when it was too late that he did not. At that point, I had a lot of pain in my side, but I didn't think there was anything seriously wrong with me. I called Mike's mom, who was watching Andrew, and she ended up calling Mike, who then left work. I also called Tammy, because I just left from seeing her at lunch, and she also came up. After 25 minutes, the police had not arrived still, and the witness called 911 again.

The funny part of this story (if there could be a funny part), was that I had to pee so bad that I could not hold it much longer. Tammy said she would run me over to the gas station across the street to go to the bathroom. So I am holding my back from the pain and trying to go to the bathroom. While we are coming out of the gas station, we hear all these sirens and horns, and I said, "there is no way that is for me after 40 minutes, right?" They indeed end up pulling up by the accident, and so now there are a ton of cop cars, an ambulance, and I can't remember if there was a fire truck or not, but now there is a scene. We roll up in Tammy's car, and there are a bunch of paramedics in the road looking for me. It was almost comical. Oh, are you looking for an injured victim? That's me. I just needed to pee.

The paramedics brought me into the ambulance, and they knew there was nothing seriously wrong with me, but thought I should get checked out for internal injuries since I was having the back pain. I told them I would rather go myself than ride by ambulance, and so we headed over to urgent care once everything was in order. It took almost 2 hours to clean everything up, tow both cars, get a report, etc. We ended up at urgent care for hours, as well, and found that the "back pain" I was having was my ribs. They took x-rays and didn't see any cracks, so we are assuming I'm just going to be really sore for a while. I can't bend down or twist, but other than that I'm doing fine.  I took my pain medication and muscle relaxer last night, and slept pretty well. Things could have been so much worse.

Today Mike and I went over to the collision place to get things out of my car, and I took a few pictures. We will found out tomorrow if they will repair it or total it out. We really want them to repair it, because I bought that car new 8 years ago, and it only has 60,000 miles now. I know where the car has been, and we have taken good care of it. I don't want a car payment, and the car is not worth a ton of money at this point. There is a good chance we would need to spend a bit more money if I have to get another one. Guess we will see what they say tomorrow.

We then headed over to Enterprise to get a rental.  It was hard to believe this was an actual Enterprise, because they told us the only car they have is the Chevy Aveo out front, and it was almost out of gas. We couldn't help but laugh. Ummm, we'll take it! I'm not sure if a car seat will fit back there, but we will see.

I put some pics of the damage below that I took today. I almost cried when I saw it, because I have had so many memories with my little car! It was my first new car, and we took it all over Arizona. I remember the day after I got it, and my co-workers and I admired it from the window at work. I was so proud! I also remember taking Jez to the dog park every day in AZ while she hung her head out the window. She still does that when I take her to different parks here. There may still be a chance they can fix it, but I don't have high hopes at this point.

Andrew and the fork...He did it!

I am just so excited tonight! Andrew used his fork by himself for the first time! While he did not pierce his carrot with the fork, he picked the carrot up, put it on the fork, and then put the fork in his mouth.While a small milestone, the proud feeling you get is amazing! :)

I can do it by myself!

Andrew has just become such an independent little guy these last few weeks and wants things to go his way. If not, watch out! He does not want to be confined to anything (this is nothing new) and he wants to walk (not be carried). He also wants nothing to do with holding my hand. He wants his freedom!

In this picture, he begged me to put his boots on, and then when we didn't go outside (we just came in 15 minutes prior), he was not a happy camper!

About to let me have it again for not going outside...

Here he is at the park the other day. He would have spent the night there if I let him. This is me leaving and waving bye to him.

He did walk all the way back to the car, though, which was impressive! The getting in the car part was not so impressive. I thought I was going to have to call Mike at work for a second, because I couldn't get him in his car seat. I wasn't sure what to do. I considered doing a Britney Spears and driving home with him on my lap. Now that he can put his feet on the back of the seat with his new car seat, he even uses the back of the seat to do his back-bend and locks in place. It's all a little comical when I think of somebody walking by watching me try to pin him down with my elbows while getting the straps on him.

He has also been making me laugh this week. We are still working on getting used to his "toothbrush", and he was doing a good job until he started brushing the dog with it.

Nothing like a snack after brushing your teeth and the dog...

He has also been getting off his schedule a bit since he was sick for the first half of the week. I couldn't get him to go to bed the other night, because he was crying and coughing. The second he gets out, he walks to the kitchen, opens up the stove drawer, and takes a pan out and sits in it.

Today I would tell him to "say mama", and he would say, "dada", and burst into laughter throwing his head back. He had me laughing so hard, that we did it all afternoon. When Mike got home, I had him do it for him, and of course he loved it! Andrew just loves his daddy. When Mike got home from golfing this morning, he "golfed" with Andrew in the living room for a while. Andrew is really great at watching somebody do something and then imitating it right away. He was supposed to get his new golf set for Easter, but he saw it when I was cleaning the closet this morning, and of course I could not resist giving it to him!

He has also been into offering people his food lately. I am the only person that will take the food from his grubby little hands into my mouth. :) Here he is offering me a goldfish.

On Wednesday night, we went to go see Tammy's son, Kaden, play basketball. While Andrew did not want me to carry him in or hold his hand, he did a really great job of sitting still for most of the game. Emily and her mom, Kathie, came to the game, too.

Please don't touch me...

Do I look nervous here?

Last night Mike's parents had us over for dinner, and his mom cooked us a delicious dinner. Andrew loves going there to see them and to play with all the toys they have over there for the grand kids. Today Andrew and I hung around the house while Mike went golfing. Andrew ended up getting his first scraped knee (and face). We were blowing bubbles in the driveway, and he was running for one of the bubbles and fell. He went down on his knee and actually rolled after landing, so his face got it too. They were both just bleeding a little bit, but I think my gasp through the neighborhood scared him the most. I don't think we will be doing as much playing in the driveway. It's just the basement well in the backyard makes me so nervous that I want to stay away from that until we get it covered. I have to think of something, because he wants to spend 100% of this time outside. He needs more toys and a safe place to play. I'll get it figured out!