A new all time low...

I'm so tired lately. Worn down. So this morning, I became THAT mom--you know, the one we all talk about behind her back because we can't believe she lets her child do ______(feel free to fill in the blank with whatever atrocious behavior you've seen your peers commit). For me, it was that I told my child if he dressed himself quickly and without whining he could have m&m's for breakfast. Yes, I bribed my child with chocolate. And it worked. Bliss!!! Do I feel regret? That would be a HELL no. I can't even claim any twinges of guilt--I SHOULD feel bad (particularly since I didn't even round his meal out with any cheese or milk or anything remotely resembling a four food group daily necessity.) But alas, I just don't. So I guess I've hit a new all time low. But I hit it with a fully dressed (slightly chocolate smudged) child, so I'm pretty content.

Gotta blog the good and the bad...

On the exact day he turned nine months old, we are back in the hospital with Alex. I'll start this post by saying he is going to be fine, but the last two days have been a bit crazy. Tuesday night we noticed Alex had a sore spot on his hand and Josh was concerned, but we decided to wait until Wednesday and if it was worse to take Alex to the doctor...boy do we regret that! By midnight Alex had a fever and was beyond fussy. After several hours of trying to console him, I realized that the infection had spread up his arm in two distinct red lines. I called Josh (he was on call) and we agreed he needed to go to the ER. You never really plan for these things so I was a bit crazed--I left the house in my jammies without brushing my teeth or putting on deodorant. I had no idea I wouldn't be home for hours. And I had to call Scott and Jenn and wake them up to come over and watch Lucas who blissfully slept through the whole ordeal of screaming Alex.

When we got to the ER we were blessed to have a college friend take over Alex's care--she even stayed three hours past the end of her shift to make sure we were taken care of. I really expected to be given some meds and sent on our way, so I was shocked into tears when she announced the infection had progressed enough to warrant admitting Alex. The picture above shows where the doctor circled all the infection lines (this was really helpful later because you could tell when the infection spread). The worst of it was in his hand, but two lines went all the way up towards his heart. It took several hours to get to our room and get settled and then we had all kinds of tests/procedures that had to be run--blood cultures, X-rays, and the dreaded IV (below). That was the worst for me--Alex screamed the entire time they placed it and I could do nothing but stroke his hair and cry. It takes up his entire arm. He was so mad he actually GROWLED at the nurse holding him down (which made us all laugh when it was over with. She said she had never been growled at by a patient before.) Alex was much happier when he was back in mommies arms!

We spent the day getting rounds of meds and watching the infection site in hopes that the redness would abate. It was a LOOONG day. His cultures came back negative today (no blood infection) which was good, and his X-rays showed no bone infections. Unfortunately, his hand is still fairly red and fluid-filled, so as of this post he is still a patient at the hospital. We are hopeful that it will look better in the morning and we will be able to come home.

Poor little tyke. He doesn't know what to think of all of this. Lucas doesn't really understand what is going on either. Thankfully, Jessie (Josh's sister) came in town with her kids and they are keeping Lucas entertained. Thank you to everyone who has helped out or offered their assistance--it means the world to us! The entire staff at Children's has been awesome, too, I can't say enough positive things about that hospital. My heart goes out to families that have to be there for weeks and months--just watching my child suffer for a few days has been difficult enough.

Irish Alex

You can't really see his cute bib here, but it says "kiss me, I'm Irish". I've never really understood that phrase. Not to knock the Irish, but why wouldn't we give equal smoochies to the French (well, maybe not them since they hate us so much) or the British (okay, some have bad teeth), or the Germans (all that spit they use to form words might be a turnoff...) or the Canadians (a-boot time for some kisses)? Really, why the Irish?

Five Steps To Fabulous St. Patties Day Cookies

Step 1: Go to Kroger to buy scrumptious iced Irish cookies...realize they are EIGHT dollars for a dozen (not even a bakers dozen mind you). Decide to improvise and make your very own. Or at least, let the folks at Pillsbury take care of making the cookies so all you have to do is pop those bad boys on a tray and have a glass of vino while they bake.

Step 2: Ice the cookies with store bought frosting. (You get the theme here, right? EZZZZ street.)

Step 3: Eat the icing.

Step 4: Sprinkle on some Irish love. (Lucas tried to eat the sprinkles, too, but thankfully I caught him before he could pour the entire bottle in his mouth. Sheesh.)

Step 5: Enjoy the cookie and the knowledge that you had a special moment with your child (all thanks to those pricey bastards at Kroger.)

You feelin' lucky??

My little tough guy, getting his Irish on for St. Patty's Day. I've got some more pics of Alex in his Patty gear and Luc and I making cookies, but I'll have to post them tomorrow since today has passed in a blur and I just realized it is WAAAY past my kids bedtime. Alex is sick--no clue what is wrong, but he has a fever and is very fussy. We suspect he has an infection--he has a weird red rash on his hand, so I am going to spend my evening googling hand rashes in infants. If anyone has any diagnosis suggestions, I'm all ears. Daddy will be taking him to the doc in the morning if the fever/rash persists. Wish us luck!

Wye Mountain...a yearly tradition

Made the trek to Wye Mountain again this year. Lucas was excited and talked about it for several days before we went. He had a blast playing with his buddies who showed up as well--it was a great workout running through the daffodils and checking out all the rabbit poop (you had to be there--in this sea of natures beauty the kids were all fascinated by pellets of hare dung. So typical!) It was a gloomy overcast day, but at least it wasn't windy and cold like last year. One of these years it will be springy and pleasant during our visit. I really wanted to have a picnic lunch in the field, but the weather vetoed that plan (and Josh--he really wanted Larry's Pizza...unfortunately so did every other churchgoing citizen in the city limits, so we had to settle for Panera Bread. Which was still pretty darn yummy.)

My two boys...so cute. I was worried the yellow pullovers would be a bit much with the yellow flowers, but I think it worked out pretty well. And I'm glad my kids can wear yellow, because I love the color and it looks awful on me. Live vicariously. More pics below.

I have tons of cute pictures from the day (I shot over three hundred) so I will post the rest on shutterfly and share them if anyone is interested.

Just Jumpin'

A friend loaned me this jumper (her daughter can't use it because the door frames in their house are too high and poor tyke just dangles!) Their loss was our incredibly fun gain because from the SECOND I put him in it he loved it. He immediately knew what to do and was already jumping and bouncing before I even had him strapped in securely. I have never purchased one of these gizmos because frankly, I have heard they are dangerous. My mother told me Scott used to spend hours jumping in his Johnny Jump Up (this was pre child-safety regulations on everything). It didn't seem too scary, though I stayed beside him during his entire bouncing session.

Tried to catch the "jumping" in motion, but the lighting was bad and my camera doesn't do action shots very well (correction: the photographer doesn't know squat about action photos. Something I will have to remedy soon since I have active boys who will probably play every sport out there).

What the ?????

Hello, where did spring go? It was here for like, two seconds and now it is all dingy and nasty outside again. I seriously hope we aren't going to get some random last minute snow again this year. Why is Arkansas weather so certifiably INSANE?? And why am I not in Tahiti right now?

Springtastic!!

We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful weekend--for starters, Josh and I were both off work (yep, the stars aligned for this magical feat!), the weather was mostly sunny and warm, and everywhere you looked it was like Spring has arrived. Saturday morning we hit a kite-flying b-day party where Luc got his first taste of the funration (fun+frustration) of attempting to maneuver a kite. He did pretty awesome with his Transformers kite (considering it only cost me a buck I wasn't expecting much bang, but I was pleasantly surprised. Sometimes cheap is better...unless you are talking about shoes or beer. But, I digress). Optimus Prime kite featured below (you know his father picked that shit. Josh is still O-ing over the return of his favorite childhood icon)

All the colors of spring are out--blue skies, new green growth, the white tips of the Bradford pears in bloom. Below is a shot of my Carolina Jessamine (no idea what the diff is between this and actual Jasmine...besides the obvious name. Looks like Jasmine. Smells like Jasmine. Not Jasmine, though). No matter what you call it, I LOVE it--thanks mom for the great purchase--it stayed green all year and is now blooming prolifically. Also getting huge (had to wrangle it back into our yard since it was trying to hop the fence and get to know the neighbors).

Saturday after naptime we ended up hitting Cupcakes on Kavanaugh where we all went into sugar shock with overpriced baked goods. To cancel out the calories Scott suggested we take a stroll through Knoop park where I discovered some FABULOUS backdrops for photos. Also a nice view of downtown LR. Jenn and I nearly passed out on the last leg of the trip. (Not really Jenn, but it makes me feel better to have a comrade in out-of-shapness so sorry, you get lumped into the story!) That evening we headed over to Uncle Scott's for fajita night (homemade everything including lick the bowl clean gauc and pico! Oh so good!) Jackson is getting so big and is markedly less puppish now. He only nibbled on my kids a half dozen times--he and Lucas had fun wearing each other out much to all the adults pleasure! Here he is in all his cute glory. Don't ya just want to gobble him up? (In a non-threatening way).

Today was lazy family day. We did nothing of import all day--and that is the best kind of spring day you can have. If only every weekend could be this springtastic!!

OMG

These pics are blurry because I had to grab the camera FAST in order to catch Lucas in action, but...my child is writing his name all by himself. We were making a birthday card for a friend this morning and Lucas flipped it over and said he wanted to sign his name on the back. I figured it would just look like scribble since that is always what he did in the past, but shockingly it actually looked like his name. So I did what any scrapbooking blog-head mom would do and grabbed a new sheet of paper and the camera and snapped some pics of him doing it again. I was SOOO excited, which of course made Lucas excited. And where the heck have I been that my child can actually write his own name? Clearly my money is worth it at daycare because Mrs. Pat is a PEACH.

Feeder Fun

Munchkin makes this really cool mesh feeder for babies (thank Kara for the great gift). Alex is just now getting interested in holding it and trying to put it in his mouth. I currently have only tried chopped bananas or pears in it, but I am open to suggestions on what other types of food are good for it. Kara also got me a nifty food grinder to go with it, so I'm sure I can grind up just about anything and put it in the feeder for Alex to try. He should be cutting some teeth sometime soon, but for now he is chewing like a puppy on everything he can get into his mouth. His favorite thing is your fingers--so I am slightly grateful that we don't have teeth yet!

Birthday Ideas

In preparation for our friends Steele's third birthday this weekend I asked Lucas what he wanted to get for her gift. This was his response:

Lucas: (without ANY hesitation) A robot.

Me: A robot? Really? I don't know that Steele would like a robot buddy.

Lucas: (thinking for just a minute then grinning really big) But it's a PRINCESS robot mommy. She'll like a princess robot you see?

What a clever little boy. So somebody needs to tell the good folks over at Playskool to get hopping and market a Princess robot...oh and I need one by Saturday. Thanks.

Eight Months

I have been waiting on his doctors appointment to update everyone on Alex's eight month status and we have finally been able to squeeze the visit into our busy schedule, so here she blows: Alex is a happy, fairly healthy, slightly delayed eight month old. At six months his pediatrician felt there were concerns with his health and I am delighted to report that after spending the last couple months jumping through hoops and having lots of appointments (CT scans, developmental and occupational evals), we have discovered that his issues are all just delays of skills. We are blessed that he is healthy and there seems to be no medical reason for his delays (basically he is just lazy and stubborn--he will develop at his own rate darn it!)
At this point he is going to begin weekly physical therapy to help get him on level with his peers (he tested at a four to five month level) and twice a week occupational therapy for fine motor skills (he tested at a two to three month level). We love his therapists--they are really nice and he digs them too (they are blond and very pretty...he gets all smiley and flirty as soon as he sees them.)
He is weighing in at seventeen pounds, we still have no teeth popping through (despite MAJOR drool and chewing) and he is more chatty lately (bababa, daddadada, mamamam, and lots of shrieking!) Most nights he sleeps through the night (6p-6a) with sporadic periods of wakefulness where he coos and talks himself back to sleep. He is drinking mostly formula now (mixed with some frozen breastmilk) because after my surgery my milk went all funky and I decided to stop pumping. This also coincided with his six month appointment where the doctor expressed concerns over his weight gain, so we felt it was the right time to switch to formula so we would know exactly what nutrients he was getting. Most days he takes four eight ounce bottles and eats three full containers of baby food. We have just begun giving him "mashers" type food in his net baggy to chew on (pics of that to come) and he seems to like that, but no chunky food yet--it still makes him gag.
He has made very little physical progress--he still can't sit up on his own and has only rolled over a couple of times. Hopefully PT will help him accomplish these skills.
But he is extremely sweet and happy and such a joy to have around. (FYI-this post was so boringly detailed because if we have baby number three I want to remember at EXACTLY what age my children achieved certain milestones and tasks.)