October 31st, 2008
5 comments...sweet!
In addition to being a belly dancer, she was also a butterfly princess.
Drew was going to be a doggie again, but since it’s 94 degrees today (freaking AZ heat), he went as a clown. Cole made this outfit in pre-school.
We tried to get a group picture before trick-or-treating, but no one was having anything to do with it except mommy.
Witches love Thomas!
Another attempt at a group shot.
October 30th, 2008
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So I really should be heading to bed because I feel a doozy of a migraine coming on but I wanted to write this before I forget the numbers and I want to be able to look back to this day to remember. When I was at Drew’s peed appt I mentioned to our peed that we took Cole off his high calorie formula and put him on a regular diet. Maybe it was guilt on my part that we went against the professionals’ recommendations for Cole, or the fact that we fired GI, or maybe I just needed confirmation that we’re okay. Well the doctor said to bring him back later that day for a weight check just to be safe. We did (we were getting the flu shot that day anyways, that’s a whole ‘nother story which I don’t want to get into right now). Anyways, they stripped him down naked and placed him on the scale just to make sure it was accurate. He is now at 25lbs14oz. While that doesn’t seem that impressive, he last weighed 23lb5oz in June of this year. We took him off the formula in the middle of August. That means that in 4 months he gained 2.5 lbs which supposedly is huge on his growth chart. The doctor said whatever we’ve been feeding him or doing for him, keep doing it because it’s working great. Part of me wishes we had done this for Cole a long time ago. He is eating fantastically now, his bowel movements are more regular and natural, and he is in synch with hunger/eating cycles which I don’t think he ever had before. I know you can not go back in time and there is no answer to the “what if” questions, but it does make me wonder if we were hurting him all along by having him on the high calorie liquid diet. Oh well. As long as he continues to steadily grow and catch up on his growth curve, I’m happy. And he looks good which is the most important part. He doesn’t look emaciated.
Other great Cole news: before we left for vacation to Disneyworld we were having issues with the potty at school and subtle threats were being made. Well, Cole being the Rise to the Challenge Guy he is…we’ve had no accidents for four school days in a row, which is two weeks of dry pants. Yahoo! I think he’s got it now and I don’t forsee any further issues with this which is a HUGE relief!! Go Cole!
Okay..that’s all for now. Short and sweet.
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October 29th, 2008
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So Drew had his 18-mo checkup today with the peed. I’ve been meaning to write a post on how dreamy our little Drewski is so I’ll try and sum it up. Here’s his stats from the doctor:
30.2 lbs/oz = 91% weight
36 34 1/2 in = 92% height
The doctor was blown away by Drew’s personality. He was all smiles and laughs at the appt and was talking in sentences. Yes, that’s right…he can say basic sentences. “I want down”, “I need milk”, etc. His vocabulary is enormous, if I had to guess I’d say he knows hundreds of words. Our speech therapist said he was advanced for his age in his speech and the doctor confirmed that not only his speech is above the 2 yr old level, but everything about Drew is above the 2yr old level. He is a super star. I’m looking into medical schools for him now. J/K.
So getting back to how awesome he is…there is no way he can’t melt your heart. He loves to smile and is 99% of the time in a fantastic mood. He is a total flirt and waves hello and good-bye to strangers everywhere. People have stopped me to tell me how gorgeous he is (almost daily) and one time a person asked to take his picture because he’s so cute. He LOVES Paige and Cole. Probably he loves Cole a tad more than Paige, but I think that’s because both Paige and Drew have dominant personalities and Cole is a big push-over. He wakes up in the morning singing or talking in his crib and could care less if it takes me a while to get him out. He still loves his babies in his crib along with his four stuffed animals and two blankies. He is totally mentally ready for a toddler bed because we do nightly storytime in Paige and Cole’s room and he loves to snuggle on their beds and pretend to sleep until we say “Drew–that’s not your bed!”. He loves to give hugs and sometimes will walk up to me and say “hug”, hug me, then walk away. So cute.
He still loves balls. That is probably his favorite toy besides his brother and sister. He loves books, especially the Fisher-Price lift the flap books. He really likes Elmo from books even though we watch TV maybe once a month for 30 minutes and we’ve never seen Sesame Street. He walks up and down the stairs now instead of crawling. His shoe size is 8.5 XW. Wow. Big feet. He’s wearing 3T shirts because of his big head and 2T shorts. That’s bigger than Cole’s clothes.
There’s so much more I feel like I could say about him…like how he brightens every day for me and I can’t imagine life without him. He sets a pretty high standard for new baby! I don’t know….there are no words to do justice on how much love he gives and gets from us. Oh Dreamy Drew……
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October 27th, 2008
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I have a feeling if I don’t finish Eric’s Disney posting he never will. So here goes:
Thursday: We went to Disney Animal Kingdom. They were supposed to have a lot of cool animals and such, but to me it was all marketing, a lot of walking, and not a lot of animals. We were just at the zoo the week earlier too, so for me it was not all that exciting to see animals at a distance. When we first got there we lucked out and arrived just in time for the Lion King show which everyone said was very cool. We were totally into it and the kids were clapping along to the songs and you could feel this amazing energy, then the MC said everyone had to leave the amphitheater immediately. Umm…okay.
The other cool thing we could do (because a lot of the attractions had height requirements that we didn’t meet) was a jeep safari thing. I couldn’t do this ride because expectant mothers were not allowed on, but it worked out okay because Drew decided to take a nap right when everyone was getting in line. Supposedly the ride was awesome and made the day worth it. All I know is they were gone a really, really long time and I was thinking Drew and I would never meet up with them and would be lost in Disney forever. We ended up hanging out next to a worker while we were waiting that repeated the same two sentences over and over again. We probably heard the same phrase at least a hundred times and I was thinking “how do these Disney people do this day after day and not go insane?”. That was Thursday morning. We went to hotel took a nap and hit Epcot Center at night. It was dimly lit, and probably catered more to young adults than little kids. The kids had fun walking around, the Epcot was supposed to simulate the world so we walked through Germantown, Russia, India, you get it. The cutest thing for me was watching Paige bust a move whenever the music got to her soul. She would just start spontaneously dancing and jumping on the sidewalk and I don’t know why, but that made me so happy that she was so happy with herself and not self-conscious. She’s like a little me!
Friday: Back to Disney Magic Kingdom. We got there a little late because we had to pack up and check out of the hotel. It was crazy crowded. Much more so than Wednesday. We hit the pirate ride first because the kids were obsessed with the pirate ride and song. Drew started crying when we walked into the ride and got progressively more violent and upset as we got closer to riding the boats. Turns out he was petrified because as soon as we got off the ride he was absolutely fine. He needs to learn to talk better. J/k. We need to be able to better recognize fear as parents. Or maybe we were helping him to work through his fear. Then we waited in line for close to an hour to ride a 2-second Dumbo flying elephant ride. Then we had to leave. All that effort on Friday for two rides. Great. Not to mention that Cole had two pee accidents (totally not his fault, I blame Disney for not clearly marked restrooms, long lines, and not enough bathrooms) and we ran out of “back-up clothes” for him. So I put him in Paige’s denim skort. I think Eric was going to have a coronary that his son was wearing a skort and he would not rest until he found Cole some boy shorts.
That pretty much sums up our trip. We were hoping for a restful plane trip home. Paige did not sleep a wink and pooped three times on the flight. Drew woke up from a nap screaming like a banshee, a fellow passenger said that ears can get pressure in them when you sleep laying down and it would take a while for his ears to re-pressurize. It was true, he was fine after about five minutes of blood curdling screaming. And Cole was fine. Probably our worst flight yet. And we still have one vacation left to go on this year!! It only gets better…..
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October 26th, 2008
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So sleeping has ALWAYS been an issue for Miss Paige. She’s almost three and as of last week she would wake up at least one or two times (sometimes four or five times) crying, moaning, or screaming. I’ve slept the whole night through as many times as I can count on my fingers. Well, last week if you remember my post, she had slept three nights straight which was mind-boggling. Then she had a bad night (awake moaning and crying for about an hour and a half) then four more nights of sleeping all through the night. That means in the last eight nights I’ve only had one bad night of sleep. It’s amazing. So I’ve been making sure that every night I mimic the same conditions that were the night before. We don’t run the air conditioning as much, the weather’s cooling off…I’m not using the ceiling fans anymore…so basically you could hear a pin drop in the house. Interesting note too….Drew has always slept with his door closed because Paige is a frequent waker and I didn’t want him waking up unneccessarily…but as of the last month or two he freaks out if his door is closed. Anyways, back to Paige…as I was singing her praises this morning for another good night’s sleep, she told me she hears noises coming from Mommy’s room. Apparently I snore. Maybe this has been waking up my little light sleeper all along? Maybe the problem was me, not her?? Geez……..
Another weird thing about Paige: we were at a birthday party yesterday and Paige and I were watching the baby get a bottle. The girl feeding the baby asked when our baby was due and I told her February, but that we hadn’t told the kids about the baby yet. Then in the middle of this conversation, Paige pulls my shirt up and says “baby in belly”. Whoa. Apparently you don’t need to explain these things! Maybe she knows more than I think! It’s not that I’m keeping this a secret from them…it’s just with all our vacations, and school starting, and potty training, and the Holidays coming…it seems a bit much. When the Holidays are over we’ll still have six weeks to go before birth day so I’ll talk it over at length with them then. I talked to my OB about this and she said it’s best to tell your current kids after 28 weeks gestation (just in case something bad should happen) so that’ll be right around Christmas anyway.
Got to go. Today’s pumpkin decorating day!!
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October 24th, 2008
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October 22nd, 2008
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So I know I’m interrupting Eric’s Disney Saga with this post, but too much is going on to not write.
First off, Paige has slept the entire night in her own bed for the last three nights. I’ve woken up around 5:30 or 6:00 with a big fat smile on my face feeling VERY refreshed. It’s amazing. Of course I can’t figure out for the life of me what’s caused this recent turn of events.
Secondly, we had our last speech therapy appointment this morning. I was particularly worried about Cole’s speech because he’s been stammering a bit lately. Totally normal. The speech therapist hasn’t seen us in about two months and she was impressed/amazed/pleased as punch at how much they’re talking now. Even Drew. She said Drew was highly advanced for his age probably from having Paige and Cole as role models. As for Cole she said with his recent hearing gains from his ear tubes, plus the positive stimulus from starting preschool, plus having Miss Chatterbox as his sister it is hard for him to get his thoughts out fast enough…so he stammers. She brought a lot of reference material regarding this subject to our appointment and after reading it, this is what I learned: I need to slow down when talking (I am a fast-talker), I need to spend more alone time with Cole (Paige and Drew get a lot of alone time with me, but not Cole…need to improve on that).
Third: We are officially done with Early Intervention. We were discharged from DDD –the Department of Developmental Disabilities today. I called to cancel our appointment for the developmental preschool today and talked to our new coordinator who basically said after reviewing our file she did not think we would have qualified for the preschool anyway. All our discharge reports from all our therapists revealed that we were “age-appropriate” for all categories: OT, PT, and speech. Weird thing, maybe not so weird because all our therapists rocked, but all of them were teary eyed when telling me how great it was to see a success story given P and C’s history. Our PT said the last time any of her patients were discharged from the system was over 2 years ago. Wow. To get all weepy myself, when I think back 2 years ago how many appts and therapies we had in any given week and how now if I have one dr appt I’m drained, it blows me away. Or how two years ago I was so worried about if they’d ever walk normally or talk or have normal brain connections, how I couldn’t breathe sometimes from the stress and uncertainty. Wow.
Fourth: OB appt today was smooth, smooth, smooth. This baby is going to be one cool dude. He’s still measuring one week ahead of schedule. Cervix is still nice’n'long. Not to be seen for another 3+ weeks. At that next appt we’ll start fetal fibronectin testing. 107 days until this baby makes his debut. 107 days to figure out a name that’ll match the awesomeness of the big guy. Pressure!
I think that’s it. Stay tuned for the finale of the Disney story….
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October 22nd, 2008
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Wednesday - So after a good night’s sleep, we awoke ready to tackle The Magic Kingdom. Unfortunately the kids were still on AZ time so we didn’t get to the park until 11ish or so. The park wasn’t that crowded. We brought a 2 person stroller on the trip, but opted to rent one at the park. Ooops, $31 a day to rent a double stroller. The first ride we went on was Pirates Of The Caribbean. The kids loved it. The rest of the trip they kept saying ‘pirates, pirates’. We then went on the Aladdin Magic Carpet ride. It’s like the Dumbo ride, but with magic carpets. Of course we had to do the Jungle Cruise. It’s neat seeing all the rides I grew up riding at Disney Land recreated at Disney World. I think for us and the kids, lunch cost around $40. That’s actually not that bad of a price considering it filled us up. By the time we finished lunch, the kids were getting tired. We headed over to Fantasy Land. We got to ride the carousel (which they always love). We noticed there was no line for Mickey’s Imaginarium (or something like that). Turned out it was a 4-D movie experience where you had to wear polarized glasses. Drew fell asleep right away on Liz. Cole was scared by some of the 3-D effects. It was funny and sad at the same time to watch him watch the show because he was jolting and sobbing every time something would “fly” at him. It took Paige till around the last quarter of the movie to put her glasses on. Once she did, she really enjoyed it.
By the time we left that movie theater, the kids were toast. It was nap time. That’s when we carted Drew around sleeping in the stroller. Everyone we passed was smiling at his cute passed out body. We ended up going back to the hotel. But not before Cole went bezerko from being overtired and threw himself on the sidewalk in a tantrum. No big deal until he was on all fours and slammed his forehead onto the pavement so loud that people walking by gasped in horror. So like clockwork, Cole and Paige passed out on the bus ride back to the hotel, and Drew woke up. So Paige and Cole could sleep, Drew and I went to the pool together. I realized that was the first time I’ve ever been alone with the big guy. He just turned 18 months old last week, and I’ve never been alone with him. Isn’t that weird? I guess that’s one of the drawbacks of having 3 kids under 3, very little one on one time. It was great hanging with him, we swam and got a beer at the pool side bar. OK, he drank apple juice. He was really chill without Paige and Cole. It was fun, we’ll have to do it again sometime; maybe when he’s 15.
We had planned to go back to the Magic Kingdom after nap, but decided to hit the Disney Boardwalk instead. It was just a hop, skip, and a jump from our hotel. It’s a re-creation of an Atlantic City boardwalk. We ate at this place, Spoodles. Food was decent, but took over an hour to get it. The one thing about Disney is the food service. It sucks. There are long waits everywhere and then when you do get a seat, the staff is overworked and takes forever to get served. Additionally, they automatically added the tip to our bills because of the size of our party. Great, 18% gratuity, OK food, shitty service. What a bargain. Side Note: The first night we ate at the buffet, we were in a rush to get out of there and I gave a huge tip to the waiter, not realizing it was already included in the bill. Bargain!
Joe and I won the kids a basketball and football by playing some of the carnival games. It only cost us $40. Bargain! There was this little grass area where we let the kids run around while we ate funnelcake. It was awesome and the kids really appreciated being let free because we held them pretty close to us all day while at the park.
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