Saturday, January 29, 2011

Christmas is finally here!

So I'm finally getting around to posting Christmas. It's been a busy month, okay?


At the start of the month, Will had to have his adenoids removed and ear tubes placed. He had been having ear infections on a monthly basis for too long! Coming out of anesthesia was rough. The moment he began to come back into consciousness he went into his signature move from infancy--the angry alligator roll. The kid couldn't even open his eyes but he was rolling over and over and over so much so that the two nurses couldn't keep him untangled from the EKG leads, pulse ox, and iv tubing. By the time we got to the PACU, all his leads were off, he was mad, mad, mad, still couldn't open his eyes, and biting at the iv in his hand. I know he was a nightmare patient for those nurses! It took a dose of lortab, and two doses of morphine to calm him down and he finally began to chill out. They really wanted him to drink some fluid and once he calmed down he did. He was not interested in the yummy juice and only slightly interested in a melty Popsicle. What he wanted was unflavored pedialyte--yuck! He chugged about 10 oz of the stuff in about an hour or so.
  Because he is so young, we had to stay overnight in the hospital. Right after we got to our room, he immediately fell down and busted his lip. It made him cry so hard he turned purple to blue to black before he finally took a breath. My nursing instincts kicked in, but I was not in my hospital. My eyes darted to the wall for some oxygen, but alas, there was none there. Next I looked to the monitor for his sat reading, but they keep it on privacy mode so it can only be read at the nurses station. I looked for the nurse assist button, but again, none there. So I panicked a little bit--as any good stressed out mother should--and called out for help, but by the time they got there he had finally decided that breathing was, in fact, a good idea.  

Other than the fact that he hated being cooped up in the room the rest of the hospital stay was fine. Thankfully, they had a wagon for us. They helped us pad it with pillows and blankets, and this is what we spent a lot of our time doing--walking the halls over and over. We would walk for a while, then go back to the room for five or ten minutes and then get back in the wagon and go out again.
He only wanted to eat pudding and yogurt so when we got home I had to make a quick trip to super Target to stock up on those things. He is now fully recovered and we have not had any ear infections so far! Yay!

Last weekend I went to Houston for a nursing conference with one of my nursing buddies. It was so fun!

 So those are my excuses as to why I am just now getting around to posting Christmas pictures.
Foreword to pictures: Luke doesn't like to wear clothes right now. We have had to develop a few clothing rules in the house:

1.  You must have on at least underwear unless you are in the bathroom or in your room alone.
2. You must have on at least underwear and pants if there is anyone other than Mommy, Daddy, and Will at our house.
3. You must have on underwear, pants, shirt, socks, and shoes to go outside.

A lot of these pictures show shirtless Luke. Be assured he has on pants in these pictures even if you can't see them.  I don't have a ton of pictures of him to post because I refuse to share pictures of him in his skivvies on the Internet.
Starting with a moment of love and sharing. . . awwww, these moments are brief these days.

Christmas Eve my family came to our house after Christmas service at our church.
 Luke and his cousin Zoe.
Of course, Luke immediately lost his sweater and shirt the moment we set foot inside the house.
All the cousins ready to open presents!!


Luke has been wanting this guitar ever since we got it for his friend for his birthday in September. Aunt Kim and Uncle Matt got it for him and he loves it.

Watching him play is hilarious. I don't know where he gets it from but he acts just like a real rocker with it. He jumps up and down and has this rocker stance with it. I can't really explain it. If he would ever wear pants, I could get some video to share with you and you would love it.
I tried to get a sweet Christmas Eve and PJ's picture, but this was the best I could get. Will doesn't sit still long, and Luke doesn't have the patience to let me take 5,000 pictures until I get one that looks good.

On to Christmas morning. . .

Luke was up first. These days, he has been coming to our room around 7 or so and crawling in bed to snooze a little with us before we all get up. He has to go past the living room to get to our room so he got to scope out what Santa brought.
He was thrilled!
Santa brought Luke a scooter.
And Will got a turtle "scooter." Just what Luke had told Santa to get them. They must have been good boys this year.

And right after those pictures, my camera was immediately buried underneath wrapping paper and toys and who knows what else. So I don't have any more pictures of Christmas morning.
The next day, Grandma Juli came in and we celebrated Christmas with Gene's family. I'm not sure who got this hat, but Will enjoyed trying it on.


Whew! Tired mommy and her boys after everyone left.

This picture was supposed to go in my previous post but got missed. My little overachiever pulled his trusty yellow chair up to the the big recliner and climbed in. I will assure you he did not climb into the recliner in order to recline and relax. His real intention is to use the recliner to get to the table next to it to get the phone/laptop/remote control/magazine/glass of water, etc.

Think I'm pretty caught up now!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Mommy's Little Overachiever

Since the beginning of his life, Will has always been developmentally ahead on his gross motor skills.

My "What to expect" book says that around 11 months my baby "may even be able to stand alone well." 
By 11 months, Will had been walking for two months. This is when he began climbing on things, and subsequently falling off things as well. He is a risk taker and is not afraid of anything.

We've started a collection of places we find him where he is not supposed to be.
No assistance was provided in any of these pictures.


He loves climbing in the open dishwasher. Doing dishes while Will is around is very difficult because he likes to empty the dishwasher for you and then climb in it.


These little yellow chairs will be the death of me. He is constantly climbing on them. He even knows that he can push them somewhere to use  to climb on something else.


This wasn't just standing on the swing, it was swinging on the swing standing up. He was laughing and enjoying himself so much!



The only thing that intrigues Will more than climbing is outlets. Reason #2 I can never take my eyes off him.




Obviously, he wasn't climbing here, but boy, was he stuck! And mad! Mommy points again for taking the picture before rescuing the child.


Poor Aunt Kim. She couldn't let him stand on the table alone. . .
But Mommy can!
C'mon. When you see it every day it's not as anxiety-provoking. He was actually doing this to steal things off the counter.


I took him off the table, so he takes his little yellow chair over to the other side of the room to reprogram my computer. Seriously, child!

As much as this drives me crazy, I think he has the most wonderful personality. I think this risk-taking is great because he is never afraid to try new things.  Once he got over his nine-months-of-colic business (who said colic ends at six months?) he has been one of the happiest kiddos I know.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Thanksgiving--better late than never

Maybe I kept putting off posting about this because it was such a crazy day. . .

It started off well-ish. Um, I think that might be an overstatement.
We all got up early to run the Fort Worth Turkey Trot--a family tradition. It was bitterly cold and bitterly windy as a front moved in during the morning. We tried to load up quickly, but, Luke made the unfortunate decision to unlatch Will's car seat from the car. If you have never tried to install a car seat into a car that is not LATCH (that is an acronym for some sort of safety feature) equipped, let me just tell you it is a major PAIN.

We started out almost fifteen minutes ahead of schedule but it took us nearly fifteen minutes to get the darn thing back in. Grrrr.

We brushed off our feelings of frustration quickly and got the boys excited for the trot.


The wind was getting colder and colder. Will was bundled in the traditional reindeer suit. Breakfast was served in the strollers, and we started making a bee-line for the starting line.  Everyone was still happy. . .


. . . until we actually crossed the starting line. Once we made the trek to the starting area (a good trek because we were late and had to park far away) and actually started the 5K, Will got very upset. I don't know what it was--perhaps he was cold, perhaps he was tired, maybe he just doesn't like turkeys. We tried to push on for a little thinking he would settle down, but he didn't. The more attention Will got, the more attention Luke wanted, so, whatever Will did that scored attention, Luke copied it.  That means, that Will screaming loud = Luke screaming loud, Will throwing cup/cheerios/mittens = Luke throwing cup/cheerios/mittens. At one point I got Will out of his stroller to carry him thinking it would settle him. It didn't, and then Luke wanted out of his. We said no to Luke which caused him to pitch a fit and fight to get out to the point that he was basically standing on the ground while still strapped into the stroller.

So we bailed--or at least tried to. We got off the course thinking we could shortcut it back to our car and get the he!! out of there, but as it turns out, we made it to the furthest possible point on the route. We ended up walking parallel to the actual course for most of the trek. When the race route crossed ours, we just joined up and hightailed it to the end. Once I had realized that carrying Will made no difference in the screaming, I just plopped him back in the stroller and ran. It actually was a little to my advantage as the wailing worked like a siren and parted the sea of turkey trotters.

Gene and I got split up at this point, but at the end I found my sister--who was split up from her hubby as well. Kim, Will, and I headed back to our car. When we got there Gene and Luke had already made it and were waiting on us.  We located Kim's hubby and got them back together and then drove home. Will passed out the minute the car started moving and slept all the way home and then continued to sleep until we got him up to go to my parents house for lunch.

By lunchtime he was all smiles.

Will loving on cousin Zoe.


And scamming Aunt Kim out of her pumpkin pie.


The afternoon was a big improvement over the morning--but really, that wasn't too hard to accomplish.

The next weekend we celebrated with some of Gene's family.  It was a beautiful day and the boys spent much of the day outside. Will, again loving on a cousin, and getting to go for a swing ride. Luke had fun raking up the leaves and jumping in the pile.



Cousin Alecia joined in for some leafy fun.


A few days later, I took some cutie pie pictures of Will in our backyard while Luke was throwing a temper tantrum inside. Whoever said two's are bad never made it to three. Soon he will be four, we are starting to see the light already.