A Million Little Pieces

I finally got around to reading this book!

I've had it for years and for some reason just never read it.

While I was pregnant and had my ridiculously itchy skin, I started taking baths. And when I took a bath I wanted something to read so I decided to start this book. Of course I didn't finish it before Cassandra was born so after a week or so, I picked it back up and finally got to finish it. I've been done with it for awhile now, but thought I'd chat about it since I have nothing really exciting to post about!

This book was quite the controversy awhile ago. You may remember that Oprah chose this as one of her book club books (which is why I wanted it). She had the author on and this book was supposedly his story.  Well after he was on, word got out that things didn't really happen the way it was written, etc. She got pissed at the author and had him back on the show to get the real story. I think what the conclusion was is that things were exaggerated a bit in the book and it was meant to be his memoir, not an autobiography.  All of the characters existed, but some scenarios didn't take place exactly as written.

Whatever. To me it doesn't matter. 

Anyways, the book starts with James getting off of a plane with two black eyes, a broken nose, teeth knocked out, a hole in his cheek and he's covered in vomit, blood, etc.  And he has no idea where he is or how he ended up the way he did.  Good way to get you into a story right?! 

I won't get into too many details, but the book basically follows James through drug and alcohol rehab. Detox, meeting different people, getting himself fixed up (physically and mentally), family visits, etc.

I'll tell you this....the guy is lucky to be alive. I think in the story he's 23 years old and the amount of drugs and alcohol he did in those short 23 years is incredible. You gotta wonder how someone gets into that habit in the first place and how they can sustain that habit for years upon years. It's pretty wild. And in the book, he's in one of the best rehab clinics and get this...only 15% of patients stay clean for a year. Forget about longer than a year!  To have one of the best sobriety rates and it's only 15% is pretty sad if you ask me. Once an addict, always an addict for most cases.

I really enjoyed the book. It got my attention right away and I kept wanting to know what was going to happen to him. Would he leave rehab? Would he make it through? What about the friends he made? Would he make amends with his family?

One thing that was tricky was the way that the author wrote out conversations. There were no quotation marks or anything. It was written like:

Bob was walking towards me. He speaks.

Hi James, how are you?
Good how are you?
Where are you headed?
Out for a walk.

Enjoy! It's nice outside!

And these conversations would go on for pages. You can imagine how hard it can be to follow at times. There were a few times I had to go back and re-read it to see who said what because I got lost somewhere in it! 

The other thing I want to mention is that the author curses like a sailor....lots and lots of swearing in the book.

One thing I liked was at the very end of the book, they did a recap of what everyone in the book is currently doing and it they remained sober or not. So that was pretty cool to see how everyone is  as of these days.

I definitely enjoyed the book and thought it was a pretty quick read. I would recommend it for sure!

Has anyone else read it and want to share their thoughts?





My Beautiful Girl

I just love her to pieces!

Three Months Old!

Today Cassandra is three months old already! Hard to believe!!

We finally bumped her up to size 1 diapers and I started putting her in size 2's for overnight-and sometimes she pees so much that she overflows them!  Most newborn clothes sadly have been put away.

She's still eating every 2.5-3hrs during the day now. Typically she wakes up 1-2 times overnight. She had one night that she slept 12 hours straight without getting up!

She has started a morning nap that starts anywhere between 9-10am. Some days it lasts a half hour and some days it's longer (one day was 2 hours!). I'd say the average is about 45mins or so. The rest of the day she naps on and off....it's mostly short cat naps though. The nice, long naps are pretty rare!

Let's see...this month she made her first trip to Buffalo, had her first Easter, and survived Mommy going back to work! 

She has also turned a corner this month in that she is much easier to put down. She is content to sit and watch things now, where before she wanted to be held all.the.time. So that has been a big help! She is much less fussy and is smiling and "talking" a ton these days which I just love!!  She has also found her hands and they are constantly in her mouth. The drooling is out of control these days too-she'll soak your arm in no time!

Here are her pics for the month....the challenge was keeping her hands away from her mouth!

These are my favorites:

And as a refresher, here are Avery's 3 month pics!

Hey Rock Star!

Look at you picking your head up!

Avery's Recovery

Avery's surgery was 11 days ago now.

It wasn't the easiest road to get to where we are now.

She did awesome in the hospital-never complained about pain, took her medicine like a champ and had 8 popsicles the day of her surgery.

If only things stayed that good!

Before they left the hospital the day after her surgery, Avery started to not want her medicine. This was a HUGE struggle with us all throughout her recovery. They wanted us alternating tylenol and ibuprofen every 3 hours. She was resisting it so much that we just started doing ibuprofen every 6 hours like directed. But the problem with that was that by the time the 6 hours were up, she was in quite a bit of pain and would just be flat out miserable. She really needed to take the meds every 3 hours, so we bumped her back to every 3 hours. We got her the liquid form of both and I tasted them myself-they're not bad! I have no idea why she didn't want to take it, but it was really a fight. We started by using the syringe for the first few days, then something happened that we literally had to pin her down and shoot it in her mouth. She would get so upset that she made herself vomit! She has never done that before!  So then we started letting her drink it out of the dosing cup and threatened if she didn't, we'd use the syringe. That seemed to work for the most part. After a few days of her nonsense, I picked up some chewable ibuprofen. She loves taking her chewable vitamin so I thought it was worth a shot. We told her they were "special vitamins" and she had a choice of taking that or drinking the liquid form. She chose the chewable every time which was good. And she didn't think it was medicine. The only problem was that I think it hurt her to chew it. It took me a long time to figure that out but every time she took it, she would burst into tears. She wouldn't say what was wrong, but you could tell she was in pain. I think her jaw was really sore and the chewing was just too much for her.

She really wasn't into eating or drinking much either. Like I said, in the hospital she had 8 popsicles the day of surgery. She didn't touch another one until almost a week later!  The day she got home she didn't have much, although around bed time she requested Ramen noodles and mac n cheese-she had several bowls of each! We were impressed that she ate that kind of stuff the following day! She had days that she ate ok, and days where she barely touched a thing. I stocked up on popsicles, pudding, applesauce, ice cream, and jello for her thinking she'd have a field day eating all of those "treats" and she really didn't want anything...it was bizarre! If someone asked me to have ice cream and milkshakes all day long, I wouldn't turn them down!

Drinking was tough too. They wanted her to drink a quart and a half of fluid a day! Which to me seems like a ton. I know she didn't drink that much at all. We were trying to pump her with juice for the calories.  She normally doesn't get juice to drink so I thought she'd love it and she really had no interest. She wasn't supposed to have milk for the first few days, but once she was able to, she really pounded that down. Luckily she drank enough that she wasn't dehydrated-she was always peeing and had tears when she cried so we did ok.

The first 3 nights I think she woke up several times overnight. Gabe would try giving her medicine, but most times she wouldn't take it-which is why I think she woke up repeatedly overnight. She had a few nights of sleeping through with no problem too.

They did tell us days 5-7 would get worse again because that's when the scabs come loose. They were right-she definitely took a turn for the worse again those few days and again was waking up at night.

It seemed the worst parts of the day were first thing in the morning, after her nap and bedtime. I'm guessing after sleeping her throat was just really dry and it made it more painful. And it seems usually when you're sick that you always feel worse at night too.

We did have a few rough moments when I was home alone with both girls. Avery just got very clingy at times and had her meltdowns and sometimes they were at the exact time that Cassandra was crying or eating or something like that. It definitely was a stressful last week off of work! 

Avery really had no desire to get dressed or go anywhere at all. Most days she was glued to the TV watching her Minnie Mouse video (I'm extremely sick of that thing by now!). It was hard at times to get her to do anything else but that. We bought her some coloring/sticker books and she really didn't even want to do that! 

I'm glad to say though that yesterday and today she seems much better and more like herself. We got her out of the house a little bit the past few days which is good. She's eating better now and just seems happier and close to normal.

We've also noticed that she doesn't seem to snore much anymore which is great! I think her voice changed a little bit though. It sounded very different the first week after surgery. Now it sounds closer to what it was, but I still think it's a little bit changed too.

Well, I go back to work tomorrow and she goes back to daycare so hopefully all goes well with that!  I think she's ready for it!

33

As of yesterday at 2:34pm, I'm now 33.

The day itself was uneventful. Avery is still recovering from her surgery so we didn't even leave the house. My Sister-in-Law and her two kids came over for awhile to visit so that was nice. It lifted Avery's spirits a little to play with someone besides me!  Gabe brought home some yummy cupcakes after work and that was our little celebration!  I got to spend the day with my girls and that's all that matters.

On Tuesday my Mom came out for a visit for my pending birthday. She brought along a yummy cassata cake:

She got me a few nice shirts and a gift certificate for a pedicure (can't wait!). My Aunts sent along "The Hunger Games" trilogy and I can't wait to dig into those either!

I had a few nice days though so I can't complain. Another year older.....woo hoo!

Cassandra was excited to rock a new outfit though!

Adorable

This little girl melts my heart.

Love the way she fell asleep...

She loves watching her bear mobile these days (that's what she's looking at here):

And this is one of my favorite stages all because of this:

I could listen to her all.day.long.

Love <3