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!

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.

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.

Hooray for 100!

Hey! This is my 100th post!

This is also my belated birthday post for Will's first birthday party. Soon to follow will be the belated Thanksgiving post and the belated Christmas post.

We just had a small dinosaur party at our house. Will had lots of help opening his gifts. I felt like I was in a child-sized mosh pit.  They were coming at me from all directions with thier little paws out. I felt a little short of oxygen.

 Will didn't mind though. He thought it was great. He loves attention.

 Zoe and Madie next to the birthday boy, just before cake.

 Will presented with his cupcake. He wasted no time digging right in!

 Yum! Yum! Loved it. Ate it up. Started trying to eat mine, so I gave him a second piece.

Don't touch my cake!

 No crumb to waste. He even licked the crumbs and frosting off his party hat.

 Off to the sink for a bath. He doesn't normally get to bathe in the kitchen sink so he thought this was awesome.

 See the tsunami splashing? That is why we don't bathe in the kitchen. He usually floods the place.

 Big brother Luke had fun fun fun. It was almost as fun to him as if it were his own party. He loved all the new toys!

 Clean and dressed and cleaning up the last of the cake bits left in the highchair.

 T-Rex was his favorite dinosaur. Will kept carrying it around by biting it on the nose.

 After everyone was gone, Will had one present left and he got to open it all by himself.

Yay! PJ's

 And, just for good measure, a picture of my darling Luke. He hasn't been featured on the blog much lately due to all this birthday mumbo-jumbo. He is such a big boy these days. I am so proud of him.  He is learning to be a great big brother--some days are hard, but he is doing great.

Dear Will,

On December 9, 2010, your naked, slimy body was placed up on my belly.  I just kept drying you off with the blankets and purposefully, lovingly, making you cry. I am a NNICU nurse. You will not be allowed to grunt and get yourself into the NNICU. I will make you scream every extra drop out of your lungs so that you are breathing perfectly. The doctor thinks I am a bit crazy for this sort of behavior.

Where on earth did you get all that luscious dark hair?

You got it from your mama.

You are loved immediately.

In December, you discover that you love baths. It does not take you long to learn how to splash, and subsequently get moved out of your cozy sink tub into the big tub where you could splash without creating a flood inside the house.  

 In January, I prop you up in the nursery rocker, dressed like your brother before, and act like a maniac to try to get some grins out of you. i am successful! Your smile lights up my world!

You are a little spitfire! You do not want to be wrapped up in your blanket. You are already rolling over.

 February comes along, and I am still trying to figure out how to help you sleep. You love your mama and only want to sleep when she is with you. However, my love, I can not do that.

I love you anyway.



In March, your personality blooms. You are such a joy to our lives.  

 Before there was you, Luke never knew he needed a brother. In April, he teaches you how to play trucks. Which is great fun until you learn how to take them away from him!

You are fascinated with your big brother.

 In May, Mama finally gives you cereal. Tasty treat! It doesn't help you sleep. We try everything--even some herbal concoction we buy off the internet. All it did was stain your shirt, blanket, sheets, burp cloth.

 In June you are starting to grow back some of your lost hair. Your baby mohawk is starting to fill in on the sides. Mama has already cut it twice to keep the long strands out of your eyes. There is no direction of comb over to combat this baldie look.

I love it!



In July Mama only takes one picture. Maybe the camera was lost? At least I got both the boys. You have been such a trooper this summer. Mama totes you all over the place getting Luke to classes at the rec center and swimming lessons. You nap on the go and eat on the fly. 

In August you are on the move. You are crawling--and fast! I can't catch you long enough to get your clothes on! But you are so darn cute, I don't care!

In September you are joyful! You go to nursery school once a week. You start to eat real food. There are six big teeth in that little mouth.



Come October, you are a little charmer! You are walking everywhere and making friends with everyone. You have no fear!

In November, you are climbing into things, onto things. but not so much off of things. You take a few dramatic falls a day, but are none worse for the wear. I have started a collection of pictures of you in/on things you are not supposed to be in/on or that you are stuck in/on.

I took to your hair with the big boy clippers after I was playing with it and realized I could put it into pigtails if you were a girl.

In December you are one! Such a big boy. You want to do big boy things and play with the big boy toys. You walk and climb up and climb down and are happy and get mad.

You put yourself to sleep and wake up mostly happy.

You love your blue blankie and your big brother.

You love your mama and your daddy.

You love your puppy and know how to pet nicely.

You don't talk yet, but you know the signs for "more" and "all done" and we are working on "please."

You bring joy to everyone around you.

You are a snuggler. You give great hugs and big sloppy wet open-mouthed kisses and just lay your head on my shoulder to say "hi. I missed you."

You love cheese and corn and yogurt and that's pretty much what you eat.



I love you and am so happy you came into my life!