The Misadventure That Always Seems to Happen

My family and I recently went on vacation to Panama City Beach, Florida. We've (by "we" I mean anywhere from 11-13 members of our family) been going there for Thanksgiving since I was a little kid and it's part of the year that I always look forward to. This year, everything was different...mostly in good ways! It was Tyler's first trip to the beach (which he wasn't too sure of), first time in the pool (which he LOVED), our first trip with my new cousin Jack (his sister Mya has been a few times previously), and of course golf, warm weather, and spending copious amounts of time with family. The bad: my cousin moved to California this year and got a new job so he was unable to come and my Grandma wasn't able to come this year either. We missed them a lot. We had a good time as usual, but I started to notice a trend that I would definitely consider a continuing misadventure.

The problem: my son poops EVERY TIME we get out to dinner. It seems like no sooner than we sit down, he needs his pants changed! I find this far more funny than annoying. Seriously, I'm laughing. Right now. As I type this. He was a very good sport and traveler for the 12 hour ride down and the 12 hour ride back and a good sport about being drug all over to unfamiliar places, but the kid has bad timing. If we stopped at a gas station and changed his diaper, he'd poop 15 miles down the road and we'd have to stop again. If we stopped at Cracker Barrel for lunch, as soon as we got our food, he pooped. I'm not real big on letting him sit in it, so of course he has to be changed right away. Needless to say, I (and many mommies out there), get a lot of cold meals.
From this "problem" comes some very interesting observations. I can tell you with confidence that newly built McDonald's have the nicest baby changing stations. I can also tell you that most gas stations have one (when I decided not to change him in the car). The best, though, are family restrooms! What a wonderful creation! I love that I can go into this unisex bathroom (which ALWAYS has changing stations), take my mom or husband with me to hold the bag or help or whatever, and I don't have to wait for the handicap stall to come available, I don't have to try and hurry up so I'm not taking up the changing station time, etc. It's really a great thing. I used my first one at a nice rest stop somewhere in Florida and my second one at the mall in Panama City Beach (where of course he had pooped during our lunch at Five Guys).

Here's one for you though. It was a first. We were out to Thanksgiving dinner at a very nice place with a traditional dinner buffet. We sit down and before I even get my plate....oops! Time to change the baby's pants. So my mom, bless her heart, goes to the bathroom with me. The handicap stall is taken by a mother and her young son, so we wait, knowing there's a changing station in there. They of course take forever, because that's how it goes when you're in a hurry to get back to family and a warm meal. They finally come out and we step inside. No changing table. Seriously?! No changing station? I guess I was remiss in assuming everyone had one of these. We all know what assuming does...

So anyway, now we need a creative solution. I guess our only option in the counter between the sinks. So we reluctantly put out the changing pad (which we scrubbed clean later, ugh) and proceeded to change him, the whole time in awe that there was no changing station. Well, now I guess we know. Not EVERYONE  has one of these. It's the little things you start to learn (and get annoyed by) being a new parent that you never even once stopped to consider before. I think I was even somtimes annoyed by the changing stations in the bathrooms. Never again will I take one for granted!

But, alas, the trend continued and my son proceeded to potty each and every time we went to dinner. What can you do but laugh? And write a blog about the misadventure this crazy trend created.

Misadventures of the Borrowers

Have you ever heard of the borrowers? You know, the little people that live under the stairs and only "borrow" things from you that they need for their homes, survival, etc.? I think there was a movie made about them some time ago...but anyway, I have two of them living in my house. They come in the form of white, fluffy, Bichon dogs named Teddy and Tobey (moreso Tobey than Teddy). They borrow anything they can get ahold of, but rarely destroy what it is they take. Most recently it's been socks, dryer sheets, burp rags, and...pacifiers.

We generally keep a good eye on most of this stuff, but don't worry too much since they rarely tear anything up. We purchased a special grabber to get things out from under our king-size bed, so we just retrieve them every now and then when we think about it. Well, as of late, we've had to keep a special eye on the pacifiers. It started 6 months ago of course when we brought our son home from the hospital. He received these special organge jelly pacifiers from the hospital that we had yet to find anywhere else (we later learned our local hospital gift shop had them). So, we had two or three of these and made sure to take good care of them. One day we left one sitting on the couch and left the room to change the baby's diaper. When I came back, it was gone. I didn't think much of it, but figured I had probably left it elsewhere. A day or so later, I looked under our bed and saw what looked like clear plastic pieces. I couldn't figure out what they were, so I just chalked it up to something the dogs had gotten like a hanger, or piece of something else.

This same scenario happened again. I was now down two orange pacifiers and this was disconcerting because we only had one left. This time I managed to find one, the nipple chewed off and it was all clear. It clicked. The clear pieces from weeks earlier were also from a pacifier. So, apparently orange pacis turn clear when mercilessly chewed, in case you were curious. These were the only things the dogs were seeming to destroy. After some loud scolding and some subsequent training sessions (setting a paci on the floor and when they approached it, telling them "no!") for several days, we figured we had solved the problem. We also vowed to be more dilligent about where we left pacifiers.

A little while later when we had apparently gotten comfortable with our new rule and forgotten all about it, friends of ours were over. As they were leaving, my friend asks me, "Have you seen Carter's paci?" We look everywhere. It's nowhere to be found. It dawns on me. I bet it's under the bed. BINGO! It was too late. It had been the latest casualty of the Teddy/Tobey destruction factory. After my apologies and more dog scolding, we vowed again to keep an eye on the pacis. Several months actually passed with no lost pacis, but the orange ones had gone by the wayside. Luckily, we were able to track down some soft green ones you can buy at Wal-Mart that he was comfortable with.

Speaking of comfortable, there we were again, forgetting about our rule. We lost a few more, we scolded, we cleaned up pieces with the grabber. Again, we did really well for the next few months, until our most recent casualty. We left a paci on the couch and it was gone in an instant. It's like my dogs are stealthy ninjas. You hear and see nothing and all the sudden the pacis are gone with no evidence. We began to be concerned that Tobey would get sick from all the plastic he was eating. Luckily, after one big exodous of doggy puke on the floor this morning (sorry to be graphic), we were able to count all of the pieces of the latest paci, so at least the dog will be okay. Our pride, however, probably won't!

So the total stands: Teddy/Tobey: 6      Pleasants/Biermans: 0.

Moral of this misadventure, keep an eye on the pacifiers. Because losing them sucks....(sorry for the bad pun).

The Class(ic) Misadventure

For those unaware, I'm a graudate student at Eastern Illinois University. I'm not sure whether I just enjoy punishing myself or if I just really love education, but whatever it is, I'm about to finish my Master of Science in Technology degree. That means I take classes. This semester I have a class on Wendesday nights that happens to meet in Champaign, about 45 minutes away. Lucky for me, several people I have taken classes with in the past were also taking this class, so we decided to carpool together and take turns driving.

This particular week it was the only guy in our car's turn to drive. It's this poor guy and three women. I'm sure he gets more than his share of chatting and girl talk than he cares to have, but he's a good sport. The ride up there started out interesting and it just kept getting better. We all ride together every week and have been for almost 10 weeks now and I've had other classes with these people so we know quite a bit about each other by now. I know this guy is a former EIU football player, he's from Florida, he has a great family, he's very intelligent and loves school; but you learn something new every day.

First, me and this guy have the same taste in music, which is rare because my taste is pretty eclectic. He plays a song on the radio by Jason Derulo. It's something I know and like so I comment aloud to him about how much I enjoy Jason Derulo's music. His response, "I went to school with Jason Derulo." I had to call him out. "Seriously? You mean he went to your school and you know who he is, right?" His reply, "Nah, I really know the guy." So, that blows me away! He tells me all about how Jason Derulo is actually from Haiti like he is and how he went to a performing arts school in New York after leaving Florida and all kinds of interesting facts. I'm in awe, but we discuss it a little more and I let it go. Very cool.

But anyway, we get to class, gather out things up and get ready to head into the building. It's a nasty, rainy night so we're in a hurry. I start to walk up to the building and I hear the guy we rode with yell, "Hey, did you see my keys?" I laugh and think 'him and those keys!' because it always seems he's losing track. They're generally in his backpack or other pocket he didn't look in yet so I go back to help him look. This time...no such luck. They're locked in the trunk. I laugh about this and he's like "What're we going to do!?" So, we head into class and tell our teacher, who has also driven up from EIU about the debacle. He offers to drive us home after class and then drive this gentleman back up with the spare keys. I'm telling him the whole time, "Call the campus police, they'll unlock it for free!" Everyone is naysaying me on this one. "No they won't, they don't do that!" I say, "Ok, but I've had them do it at EIU or at least had friends that had them do it, so surely they'll do it up here (at Parkland)." So, facing the alternative, my teacher decides to call the campus police for our friend and driver. After a while he comes back in with the keys! "See!" I said. "I told you they'd do it!" They all agreed that I was right and couldn't believe that the campus police would actually do that.

Sometimes I'm right. Haha. At any rate, I'm glad we got the keys back and no one had to drive us home. It was a misadventure that had a happy ending.

The Painful (on several levels) Misadventure

Each day as new parents there are new challenges we have to master. One of those we have to do often is trimming finger and toenails. Apparently everything on babies grows like a weed! Sometimes I feel like that's all I get done is trimming nails. But, I digress. My latest misadventure begins with this very task.

On a normal weekend morning I got up with Tyler and got him changed and fed him his morning bottle. He was getting droopy-eyed so we finished the bottle and I let him relax there for a while. He was pretty much asleep so I decided that'd be the best time to cut his nails as I usually do. My first issue is that I couldn't find the nail clippers. I looked in the bathroom, the diaper bag, his bedroom, and finally, I find them in a random box in the kitchen. I remembered later why I'd tossed them in there, but at any rate it took me a while to find them. Luckily Tyler was still lightly dozing so I went ahead and started the nail clipping process. This went as normally as one could hope...at least for 9 fingers.

I finally got to the last finger, one of his thumbs. He's a little awake now, but still dozing so I figure I'll go ahead and finish quickly before he wakes up fully. I slide the clippers over the nail and just as I'm about to clamp down, he startles awake (most babies do this, and it's quite the event if you've ever seen it) and I've already clamped down. The tears and wails start. I've cut his thumb. So, he's all red-faced and screaming now and I'm already feeling bad because I've hurt him (the first time I've actually made him this upset from something I physically did). I finally get ahold of the flailing hand to survey the damage and I see it. I cut the side/top of the skin near the nail. Now blood's trickling everywhere! It's on the baby's pajamas, on me...I'm beginning to get uncomfortable, but not panicking.

My first instinct is to put his finger in my mouth, so I do in hopes of keeping the blood volume down. That's not helping so I grab the burp rag because it's the closest thing I have and wrap up his little hand and hold it. He's still screaming and the mommy guilt is setting in. I'm nearly in tears and his finger is gushing so I take him in the bedroom to my husband, who was sleeping and say, "I need help, I don't know what to do!" He shoots up out of bed and says, "What happened?" I unwrap Tyler's finger and it's still gushing blood. We all head out to the kitchen and run his hand under water. Nothing. Still gushing. We decide that we should elevate his hand and put pressure on it so I get him on the couch and hold his hand up. Luckily at this point, he stops crying. It was almost like magic. I sat there holding his hand up for a long time and I went to look to see how it was doing, and it's still bleeding. Now I'm debating going to the emergency room. But surely baby nail clippers can't do that much damage, right? So we sit a little longer. My husband gets a band-aid; still bleeding. My mind is racing.

How much blood can a baby lose before this gets bad? Do I need to tie it off or something like you see in those movies? Can you even stitch a baby's finger?

Finally, I get it together and still holding the baby's arm up, take another look. Yes! It stopped bleeding! After a few tears of my own, we manage to get some Neosporin on the finger and put one of those newborn cotton mits that you use to keep babies from scratching themselves on it to keep the medicine on. Not a half-hour afte rthe entire incident, Tyler is already laughing and playing and forgetting about what his mommy did to him. Boy, was that a day I'd like to soon forget!

The good news is, just three days later, you can barely tell it happened at all by looking at his finger. Thank goodness babies are so resillient...even when their mommies aren't.

The Adventure That Had a Small Misadventure at the End

I've said it before. My job is pretty cool. I'm a television producer/director for a small PBS station. As part of my job, I co-host a travel show in which we feature interesting people and places on the backroads. I was out doing one of these stories just the other day and it was a pretty big one! I had the opportunity to tape the world's largest privately-owned telescope being installed right here in my home county! It's 50" and had to be lifted into its observatory by heavy machinery. I was thrilled to be able to watch that happen (because I'm somewhat of a "space nut") and even more thrilled to be able to do a story about it that I'll eventually bring to my viewers.

I arrived just in time to watch them load up the first of three pieces of the scope to be lifted into the observatory, which has a cool, motorized retractable roof by the way (nerd alert!)! What was amazing is once they got each piece in there it had to be bolted in, placed and measured so precisely so the mesaurements and astronomical work that will eventually take place there will be as accurate as possible. The gentleman who constructed/owns the scope sends much of his data to NASA and also works with Eastern Illinois University students for research. He's also a former magazine photographer. These are the kinds of interesting people I'm fortunate enough to meet on my job every day. Also notable is that this man chose the darkest spot in the county on purpose to live and put up his observatories. This is for maximum viewing potential far away from any ambient city light.

So, anyway, they get all three pieces in and I am filming a little more footage. I decide to text my husband because it's now 3:50 and we had said we'd keep in touch about who will pick up our son at daycare. Clearly, we hadn't done this. I shoot him a text to ask where he is and he says he's still 90 miles away (he had been at a business/golf outing), putting him at the daycare around 5:30. Well, that won't work because that's when they close. So, it's up to me. I'm still a good 20 minutes from work, then I have to put all of my gear away and get out to the daycare. I text my husband that I will take care of it. I decide that since everyone is sweaty and tired from installing the telescope that I'll probably have to come back another day to do interviews anyway. I tell them that I have to leave and lucky for me, he says, "Oh, that's it anyway! We're finished." So I lucked out on that one! I wasn't going to miss anything! I make my way back to the office and manage to get out to daycare just before 5 pm. Disaster averted! There's always the option to ask our wonderful friends whose son also goes there to pick him up, but luckily we saved everyone the trouble. Sometimes that's how it works out I guess! Life is definitely different (and wonderful) with a little guy in your life!

I'm just glad this was more of an adventure, than misadventure.

The "That Just Happened" Misadventure

We're typical family people and generally like to spend as much time with our families as we can. Lucky for us, they all live in the same town. So, this weekend we went to visit and had a normal, lovely weekend ending with church, visiting and a trip back to our hometown (about an hour's ride). Our son, Tyler, is such a good traveler. He either entertains himself in the car or usually falls right to sleep. On our trip back this time he fell asleep about 15 minutes into the ride. We had a nice, peaceful trip until about 10 minutes from home when he woke up and decided that no amount of singing or Raffi playing over the stereo would calm him down. We managed to make it home and decided he must be hungry, it was approaching his dinnertime anyway.

We get him inside and I warm up some squash (we're finally on to veggies!) and mix in some cereal. He's still in full-on scream mode and is having nothing to do with it. We fight a little and he manages to eat a few bites. Meanwhile, my husband is unloading the car and putting things away so he is in and out. The squash isn't working so I ditch the idea and start making a bottle of formula. Poor Tyler is red-faced and wailing in his highchair at this point. I get him out and take him in the living room in an attempt to administer the bottle. My husband all the while making suggestions about what to do and trying to help me hurry along to get the bottle in his mouth. I'm beginning to get frustrated, my husband is beginning to get frustrated and the baby is past the point of frustration. Tyler takes some of  the bottle and then needs a break as he usually does since he's currently congested. My husband goes back to his unloading the car business and I let Tyler relax a little bit and decide to try some more squash while we wait. He gladly takes a few bites of this since he's calmer now. All of the sudden out of nowhere he starts up again. The red-faced wails come back and the tears are flowing. Now I'm confused. Here, I thought we were all friends again! So, I decide maybe that pesky tooth is bothering him. I'll get him some Tylenol and let it start to work. I give him that and still the crying continues. By this point we're all frustrated.

The checklist begins. Hungry, no, we just ate. Hot, no. In pain? Probably not. Ah, maybe he's dirty! So, I take him to the bedroom with my husband in tow. I get his diaper off and he's barely dirty but maybe that's the problem. I go to switch diapers and here it comes, the rest of the apparent problem (he has just started real food so the digestive system has been working slow...this was a welcomed "problem"). Luckily the diaper was slid in there right in time. We get him all cleaned up and put in his pajamas (we have given up the rest of the eating thing by now). As I'm carrying the baby and his dirty clothes out to the laundry room, BURP! Squash. All over my arm, the baby's clean pajamas and the only clean sleep sack I currently have. With a little laugh (because what else are you going to do at this point) I head back to the bedroom to change him again. New, clean pajamas. While I'm there, I decide to check the diaper one more time. As soon as I open the flap on one side, yep, you guessed it! Pee. On the sheets, on my hand, on himself. Luckily, not on any jammies yet because he didn't have any on at this point.

So, I get him re-jammied once again in the warmest jammies I have because he has no clean sleep sack now and change the sheets on his crib. I finally get him to sleep with a little round of crying, pacifier-in, pacifier-out. It was definitely one of those trying nights! Hopefully he'll sleep all the way through it now after all of that excitement! And don't worry, I'm drying a clean sleep sack now. He'll be warm and cozy in no time.

That's the latest misadventure! Sometimes even normal Sundays get crazy around here.

The Mystery Misadventure

So, by now you're familiar with my son, Tyler. I talk about him, oh, just a little bit! This is another blog about him. The little guy has been doing so well lately. He's had a little congestion from the weather changing, but nothing we couldn't deal with. He finally started sleeping through the night too! Well, Sunday morning proved a whole new beast. It went something like this...

3:30 am Tyler wakes up screaming. Since we are attempting sleep training (not feeding until it's actually time to get up, simply putting the pacifier in), we assumed it must've just been a little wakeful period in his night. I get up and go in there to give him his pacifier. That works for a little while. Then the piercing screaming begins just shy of 5 am. Now the whole house is awake. We're trying everything. Diaper change, rocking, singing, walking the house, everything. Finally, I give in and decide to feed the little buger. That calms him down while he's eating, but as soon as he's done, the wailing starts again. The problem remains a complete mystery.

By this point I've sent my husband back to bed because there's no reason for all of us to be awake. After poking, touching and looking all over for something that could be wrong with this child I decide something must hurt and I give him some Tylenol. This appeases him and he takes a nap (and so do I) until about 7:30 am. As soon as he wakes up, it's on again. At this point I just feel so bad because I have no idea what's wrong and can't do anything for him. After taking his temperature and attempting another feeding (which he would have nothing of until an hour later), we determined that he's running a fever and maybe has some sort of bug. We know now that we have to keep him hydrated after our last ER visit (See the Misadventures in Health for more on that) so we're making sure he is eating and giving him water here and there. After his temp gets up to 101.3, I call the pediatrician (or page one, rather, since it was a Sunday). While waiting for the call back we decide maybe it's teeth. I mean, sure he's only 5 months old, but some babies teeth that early. I wasn't one of those. I didn't get my first tooth until almost 18 months and they had to do xrays to make sure I even had any (they had never seen this before at my dentist and ironically, a few years later his very own daughter had the same thing happen).

So Tony looks more closely in his mouth and there it is! A tiny little white speck poking through his top gum. Amazing that something that little can cause so much anguish! So out come the cold teething rings, vibrating teethers and everything else we've got in our arsenal. We kept up the Tylenol every 4 hours and he seemed to be getting much more congenial by the minute. The pediatrician called back and said that's what it sounded like to her as well and to make sure his temp stays below 102, otherwise we'll have to come in for an office visit. Luckily, so far, so good. The fever is holding below 100.

That's the latest misadventure in mommyhood. And boy it really was a mystery until we got it all figured out! I'm just glad we did!

The Great Birth Misadventure

Tyler Nicholas Pleasant in the NICU

Tyler and Mommy in the NICU

For this post, I'm going back several months, but it's definitely still a story worth telling. Strange as it may seem, the birth of my son was quite the misadventure! I was reminded to tell the story after a recent reunion with all of his hospital buddies from the intensive care unit.

7:50 am: It started like a typical Friday on May 6th, 2011. I got up (34 weeks, 4 days pregnant, so it was a slow process) and got ready for work. As I went to put my jeans on, my water broke. At first I wasn't sure what was happening because we still had 5 weeks until our little guy was supposed to be here! After deciding yes, I was in fact in the beginning stages of labor, I got my husband out of the shower and told him it was time to get going. Of course we had nothing packed and hadn't even installed our carseats! That was all on the list of "Things To Get Done in the Next Week or So." Afterall, it had only been a week after my graduate classes finals, several weeks after my baby shower and only TWO DAYS after my maternity photos had been snapped (Thank you, Jana Johnson for getting those done just in time!)!

8:04 am: A little shaky, but under control, Tony and I both began to walk about the house packing any and everything we could think we might need at the hospital. Strangely enough, this was almost a peaceful, organized process, but I suppose if you know us you know we're generally pretty level-headed. We even had enough wits about us to find the list the doctor gave us of things we'd need to take along. So, we gathered all of that up, spent several agonizing minutes deciding exactly what we should put in our bag for the baby to come home in and got the carseat installed in my car. Phone calls were made to both sets of parents (soon-to-be-grandparents!). Now it was off to the hospital.

8:50 am: But first, we had to make a pitstop to Walgreens because we didn't have everything on the list. Tony ran in while I waited in the car with my beach towel. It had now been a little over an hour since my water had broken. Several minutes later, Tony returned with everything else we needed in hand. He said, "I must've had that 'dad-on-the-way-to-the-hospital' look because the clerk saw me in the aisle and said, 'having a baby?' I told him we were and he said, 'what's on your list?' and proceeded to help me gather it all up." All I can say, is bless that man's heart.

9:18 am: We arrive at the hospital emergency room and are immediately directed up to the birthing center floor. Of course it was Friday and my OB/GYN is out of the office on Fridays. I was sure they'd have to page him, he wouldn't answer and I'd be stuck with someone I'd never met. After the nurses determined, yes my water had broken and it wasn't something else (duh!) they hooked me up to a contraction monitor and told me to wait a few minutes. Low and behold, I hear my doctor's voice. My husband peeps around the corner and there he is! He waved him over and he came to see me. I don't think I'd ever been as happy to see someone at the right moment as I had been to see him then. He checked me out and determined they'd probably try to stop labor and hold me a few more days.

11 am: My parents are now on the way to Charleston with Tony's not too far behind. The doctor had now determined that they were going to need to transfer me to a hospital in a bigger city (Champaign, for those of you who are familiar with our region) because if they couldn't stop my labor, they would prefer that hospital for their neonatal services. So, they'll send an ambulance, I'm told. At this point we're still thinking I'll be on hospital bed rest for a few days, if not weeks.

12 pm: I'm starving, but of course they won't let me eat. Now the ambulance is here to get me and the nurse is getting me ready to transfer onto the stretcher. Of course they send two male ambulance personnel to assist so all I can think about (and say out loud) is, "Please keep my butt covered!" For whatever reason, although you pretty much lose all dignity during the birth process, I became obsessed with no one seeing my back end! I get to the ambulance and tell my husband to make sure he gets something to eat on his way up to the next hospital (it's about a 45-minute ride) since we don't know when we'll get the next meal. As soon as I get in the ambulance I'm talking to the nurse about the hospital bedrest and such and she just looks at me and says with a smirk, "Oh no, honey, we're having this baby today!" WHAT?! That's all I could think. "Today, you mean, like this afternoon?" Yes, it would be this afternoon, well evening. My poor husband in the car behind us has yet to gain this piece of knowledge...

1:15 pm: We arrive at the larger hospital and I'm taken to my room. Contractions are stronger now. They're going to do an ultrasound. The ultrasound is fine, baby's lungs are fine, no steroid shots needed. My husband is now in the room and is about as shocked as I am that we are going to have this baby today (by C-section because the stubborn little guy was breech, just like his momma).

2:30 pm (I think): Both families have arrived and heard the news. Now it's time to wait and bide our time.

5:30 pm: Finally, an operating room is open and Tony and I get suited up to go in. It's cold as ice (yeah, I'm singing that song now too) in the operating room and I'm splayed with arms out on the table like some kind of posable doll. Now I'm shaky because I've had the spinal block to numb my bottom half and the whole thing is getting very real. The nice and very enetertaining anesthesiologist gets me a blanket and they bring Tony in after what feels like forever.

6:34 pm: They wheel over the most precious, perfect little person I've ever seen (5 lbs, 6 oz, 19 in. long) and let Tony take a few pictures before he is whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). I'm taken to recovery where Tony graciously waits for a while before I tell him to please go talk to the families and go with the baby. I fall asleep.

This is where the timeline gets away from me. I was pretty groggy, but the long and the short of it is I got wheeled to the NICU in my hospital bed, they took a picture of our new little family and then my family and Tony's came to visit me in my hotel room until I got tired and sick from the anesthesia and everyone went home so we could sleep. It was just about the craziest day I've ever had but it was worth it a million times over.

My poor little Tyler had to stay in the NICU for a total of 18 days. Luckily he was never sick, just still developing. He ate mostly through a feeding tube until we could get him used to a bottle. They called him a "grower/feeder" since he didn't have any health issues. He had an IV for one day and oxygen for one day and then he was on his own unless you count heart monitors for the rest of the 18 days. Only me, Tony and both sets of grandparents could visit him (to keep germs to a minimum), so it was hard not to be able to show him off, but it made it that much more exciting when everyone could finally meet him. It was hard to leave him in the NICU (we stayed at a house on the hospital's campus for a few days, it was a free service and wonderful, but after a while we decided to go home and drive back and forth) but he's home now and almost 5 months old doing great! He's definitely my favorite (mis)adventure to date!

We recently had the plesure of attending the NICU reunion and seeing some of the babies that were  with Tyler in the NICU and others that were there while we were. It's nice to see them all healthy, happy and outside the confines of a hospital. It was also wonderful to see the nurses and doctors that provided such wonderful care for our favorite little guy!

Tyler Nicholas Pleasant

4 months old

A Misadventures in Mommyhood Moment

Brought to you by the letter "P" for poop!

As you've probably discovered, I'm a new mom. I definitely don't take that job lightly, but it definitely has it's lighter moments. Here is a recent one.

So, on a recent morning I'm doing my hair in the main bathroom of our home. My husband and I have decided that we need to be better adults and maybe try getting up even before our son is awake as opposed to using him as our alarm. What happens when we do that is we tend to already be behind before our day even gets started, so we're both up getting things done. When my son wakes up we take turns getting ready and then switch so the other person can get ready for work. But, I digress.

I'm in the bathroom doing my hair and the door flys open and my husband is standing there with my son. I thought to myself, "What could possibly get them away from their morning Sports Center session?" Then it hit me. The smell of a little gift my son often makes for us. My husband usually brings my son to me when it's time for the big diaper changes and I don't mind but this became funny really fast. He was holding the baby horizontally and when he lifted him away from his body and pulled away the burp rag hung over my son's behind I could see that there was poo-poo on my husband's shirt and pants and all over my son's leg. After I stopped laughing I took over so my husband could go take a shower.

Now, for anyone who has ever dealt with a blow-out you know it's hard to decide where to start. These are zip-up jammies my son is wearing so in order to get the diaper in the first place I have to remove his feet from the little footies of the pajamas. Oh yeah. Not pleasant. So, I'm covered in it, he's covered in it and now my husband is laughing. But we get that all cleaned up and manged to get all wiped down and smelling good. I dress my son and the day goes on as planned...gather up, load up and head to daycare. On our way out the door we decide we need to soak the jammies and throw them in a sink after discovering our washer doesn't really have a soak cycle per-se. You can only imagine what my house smelled like by lunchtime. Let's just say I'll leave it at that!

The Almost Misadventure

So, my job is pretty cool. I host a travel show for a local public television station where we go to places in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri and do stories about interesting people, collections, places and groups. My assignment for this weekend was to chronicle a bike polo team. Yes, polo on bicycles. I know, I've never thought about it either.

Anyway, I get to the city where this club meets. It's known as a pretty crime and gang-heavy town so I drive in with all doors locked and pay attention. We always joke about "not getting shot" when we go there, but it can be a real threat so I was on alert, just being dilligent. I had directions to the park (a very nice little neighborhood park) where they play polo. I am following the directions and notice a street I need to take, but it's out of order compared with where I'm supposed to go, but I decide I'll give it a try anyway. I take off down this road and soon begin to realize I'm not probably in the right place, or a very nice neighborhood for that matter. That's about the time I see the man walking down the boulevard with a pipe in his hand, so I turn back to the main road and high-tail it. Needless to say, after going a little further than I thought it would be, I found the right road and made it safely to the park where I met the bike polo club and shot my story.

I guess that's why I am calling this an "almost" misadventure. It definitely turned out to be more of an adventure but it did get interesting for just a minute. And for those of you who are curious about bike polo, it was awesome. It's on a court about 100 x 75 feet or thereabouts and matches last 10 minutes or first to 5 goals and teams are 3-on-3. The people I talked to compared it really to hockey, because it's far less formal than horse polo and very much more "X Gamesy" if you ask me. It's fast-paced, there are wrecks and a whole lot of foul language, but I still enjoyed watching the competitiveness of it all and meeting the extremely nice and accommodating people there. They even spray painted their logo on one of my T-shirts for me. So I guess I'm honorary bike polo-er now, although I'm not sure I would ever be coordinated enough to play!

So that's my latest (mis)adventure. I hope to be back with another one really soon. And I'm going to start adding photos so you may want to page back through some of my blogs to check those out!

Misadventures in Health

The Pleasant Family is generally a healthy crew, well, at least they were until last week. I can honestly say last week may have been one for the stress record books. It really began on Monday, although we didn't know that then.

My husband, Tony, works in an office. Apparently he went to fix something on another computer in that office and misjudged a chair, we'll call it. You know, like when you go to step down off a step and it's further away than you thought? It was that, just with an office chair. This created a sharp pain in his abdomen he told me when he got home that day. Luckily, the pain went away that evening. So, he wakes up the next day and says he's a little sore, but nothing else.

Fast forward to noon the next day. After complaining of a few painful spasms, he calls me at noon and says he's headed straight to the emergency room. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hello?"
Tony: "Hi, I'm on my way to the emergency room."
Me: "Ok, are you okay? Can you wait for me to drive you?"
Tony: "No, I've already left home I'll just meet you there."

So, I jet off from work to the emergency room a little more than slightly worried, because for my husband to go to the ER, it must really hurt. He told me it felt like it might be his appendix. To make what could be an even longer story short, they do bloodwork, a CT scan and determine that it's not his appendix (whew!), but it could be kidney stones. So we wait a little while longer and they determine it's not that either. The diagnosis works out to be a severe muscle strain, from, yep the chair incident! It's not funny (okay, it's maybe a little funny), but they gave him pain killers and naproxen for the muscle spasms causing the pain.

Now, many days later, this leads to heartburn. The poor guy now has consistent heartburn and stomach pain so he quits taking the meds and goes to our regular family doctor (because 48 hours of persistent heartburn is not normal!) who informs him that the naproxen is causing that and it'll be another 7-10 days before that lets up. Needless to say, he will have to suffer some more, poor guy.

But, that can't be the end of this little misadventure! Two days after this little incident I'm sitting at work and my daycare calls me to inform me that my son has neither eaten or made a wet diaper since he's been there (he was dropped off at 8 am, it's now noon). So, I call his doctor and get no one. I leave work to go get him and the little guy can't even wake up or pick up his head. This has me scared to death, but luckily my husband shows up and we take the baby right to the doctor. No one is there (can they really send an entire office of pediatricians to lunch at the same time? Apparently they can!). We procede to the ER for the SECOND time this week. By this time Tyler is awake, but still groggy. They give him chest xrays, which he did not like, and an upper respiratory virus test, which he really didn't like.

All tests come back negative and it turns out he just has a chest virus. The grogginess was caused by dehydration from not wanting to eat. The worry is less, but the poor guy now undergoes saline nebulizer treatments and a whole lot of nose sucking to help relieve the congestion. He should return to normal in a few weeks. I also had nebulizer treatments when I was little and boy, have those machines come a long way! Ours looks like a little puppy now. When I was little, it was a big, scary box with a handle!

Anyway, that's the end of this misadventure, let's just hope we don't have to have anymore like it in the near (or far) future!

The $500 misadventure

You know when you're just having one of those days? I can definitely say that was me today. I came home from work for lunch, as I typically do. My husband and son were at home because my son has been sick and is out of daycare until later this week. I'm on the 17 Day Diet (more on that misadventure later), so I was cooking myself a few turkey burgers. Well, the chef in me knew just what I was doing because Bobby Flay told me that all I need to cook a turkey burger is some olive oil and a non-stick pan.

So, here I am seasoning my burgers feeling very Wolfgang Puck. My pan of oil is hot so I decide to drop the turkey burger in. If you guess that I splashed hot oil out of the pan and burnt my arm, you win! I now have a nice little splash  pattern all over my right arm. But that's not the biggest misadventure of today.

I managed to eat the turkey burgers without further incident. After playing with my son, Tyler, for a little while, it's time to go back to work. I say my goodbyes and hop in my car. I begin to back out of the garage and look to make sure I'm not too close to the side as I come out, just like I always do. After my initial check I continue to back out. BAM! I hit the side of the garage and tear off the driver's side mirror. Apparently I was crooked coming out, so my obligatory check was no good. I managed not to shatter the glass, but now there's a big, dangling mirror creating an eyesore on the side of my car. The noise was loud enough to bring my husband and son from the house. Bless my husband's heart, he took one look and said, "Accidents happen!" Definitely what I needed to hear over, "What did you do!"



Needless to say, I hopped out, loaded up into our SUV and went back to work fuming the whole way over a silly mistake. Upon arriving at work I called my car dealership and explained the problem. They explained the could get the part in a week, but it would come unpainted so that would have to be done too. I told them to order away! The grand total for the fix: $500! I would call this a very big misadventure and one I won't soon forget.

My husband's handy taping job!



View from inside



The moral of the story, look more than once before backing out of the garage. It'll save you from having your mirror duct taped to your driver's side window for a week!



Welcome to the misadventures!

A wise relative of mine once told me, "You need to start a blog and narrate all of these adventures (you've been having) lately." So, I got to thinking and decided, why not?

Sometimes interesting things happen to me and my family and there's almost always something comical or, at the very least, relatable, so why not share them with the world? That leads me to this blog. Here I am and the plan is to start logging these "misadventures" I tend to have. The title comes from my last name, Pleasant. I can definitely say I live a Pleasant life 99% of the time.

I'm the typical American for the most part. I'm married to my high school sweetheart, have 2 little white dogs, a ranch-style home with a picket fence and a nearly 5-month-old son. We like to travel, play golf and make an adventure out of every day. I'm a journalist and host a television show at a local PBS station in which the tagline is "Every mile is an adventure;" I truly believe that. You can make an adventure (or misadventure) out of anything. But when the adventures do turn into misadventures, that's what I plan to detail here. I'm a former newspaper journalist and passionate storyteller so I can't help but want to write about what I know.

Sit back, strap in and join me on my ride in the Misadventures of a Pleasant Life! I hope you'll stop back by frequently or subscribe to my posts so you can read up on what I hope will be awesome new (mis)adventures every week (and maybe even more often).