Spring has Sprung

Well... its been ages since I decided to update.  Winter doldrums, perhaps?  I realize reading back on old posts that though the day to day may seem benign, I really enjoyed reading about the "mundane".  So we fast forward through January, February, March and April... Wow!  For the record we have had hand surgery and some time in a train cast.  We traveled back to Florida for a long weekend and dealt with a nasty stomach virus.  We enjoyed visits from Grandmama and Granddaddy twice, Aunt Gretchen & Uncle Charles once, Grandma and Grandpa Tim came to visit as well.  We stuck pretty close to home and tried to survive a chilly winter.  

Sam has come to love his daycare.  We call it school.  He loves to name all the friends in his class. He goes to school with "Dabby" (Gabby), "Tawa" (Carla), "Oh-doud" (Yonald), "Dames" (James), "Ee-ya" (Leila), "Ahdoo" (Andrew) & "Fawa" (Sarah).  His teachers are "Choup" (Sue), "Won" (Ron) & "Darchee" (Darcy).  He loves them all very much and talks about them incessantly.  Some of his other best buds are "Choo-chee" (Lucy), "Mows" (Miles), "Beff" (Beth) and "Fawah" (Sara), "Weece" (Reece) & "Aawon" (Aaron).  

We had been poking along in vocabulary and then one day, we started talking.  And talking... And talking.  I gave up writing down the words.  We're doing two-three word phrases and it cracks me up.  I love hearing what words come out on any given day.

Sam did great in his hand surgery in January and has been plugging along in OT since his cast came off in early February.  Mostly Sam is too creative and stubborn to follow through with his prescribed therapies.  He can get out of any adaptive equipment the OT fashions!

We are LOVING spring around here these days.  We loved the stretch of hot weather about a week ago.  I'm thinking we'll be spending most of the summer outside.  We are going in with the neighbors and have purchased quite the swingset for the kids.  Hopefully they will actually use it!  The plan is while the kids are playing the parents (Dave and I) will be able to get some good yard work done.  I have attempted to convert my black thumb into at least a slightly green one.  We have a good patch of garden space waiting for some veggies.  When I realized I could grow a head of lettuce for less than a penny, I was enticed!  Perhaps my little helper will become interested as time goes on.

So we are steaming ahead towards TWO around here.  We're looking forward to exciting times in the next few months.  Aunt Nan is coming to visit soon.  We are going to head to NYC for the weekend in a few weeks.  In June we'll be going to San Francisco for a wedding closely followed up with another trip to NYC so Daddy can go to the US Open (golf).  In July we'll head back to the beach for another family vacation.  Whew.  

In the interim we hope to fill our time with backyard play, trips to the park, swims in the town pool and lots of get togethers with our friends.  I think we're going to have a fun summer!

I plan not to take a 4 month blogging hiatus.  Too much happens to not record it somewhere.  I can't believe how much the little dude has changed since December.  Or since last week, for that matter.  Here's to hoping...

Verbosity, Take 2

Happy New Year from Sam's fam. On the eve of 2009, I take it upon myself (since my child is sleeping and we are visiting the GP's in Florida-par-tay) to compile the latest words of Sam!

"Bye-bye" is now officially so... it used to be "dye-dye"
"Uh-oh" -no more uh uh in our house
"Ma-ma" -finally means what it should!
"Bubbles" (buh buh)-we like to blow bubbles in the tub...
"Mooo" - the sound of a cow
"Baaaa" - the sound of a lamb
"Rawr" - the sound of a lion
"Awfff" - the sound of a dog
"Da-da" or "ba-ba"-mean's whatever he happens to be pointing to, or it means more...
"Vooom"-the sound of a car
"Choo - Choooooo" - the sound of a train
"Chue" - a shoe
"Ga-mama"-Grandma
"Wow"-obviously...
"Baby"-directed towards any small child, his own reflection or pictures of small kids!

Sam has mastered the sign for "more" and is learning the one for "milk" so we can ultimately distinguish what he REALLY wants. The sign for more currently means "more" or "I want". Can get confusing... He babbles incessantly but has a limited number of actual "words". He's learning the verses to the song "If you're happy and you know it..." and has mastered clapping his hands on cue and throwing his arms up for "shout hooray". He can shake his head "no" when he doesn't want to do something. He is giving hugs by placing his head on your shoulder and patting your back. He has become less generous with the open mouthed kisses... He will point out people he knows in a room or in a picture. He loves positive reinforcement and is very happy to clap for himself after he accomplishes something!

On this vacation alone, he has become increasingly comfortable with the pool and almost wants to swim alone... He tries to jump right in the pool, even if noone else is there... He dunks underwater and comes up sputtering, then asks for "more". He is also increasingly confident in his own physical abilities and is into anything and everything.

I can't believe how fast he is growing and changing. I feel like this kid learns something new every day. I look at some recent pictures of him and marvel at how much he looks like a kid instead of a baby!

Well, this was a little longer than I had planned. Happy New Year. May 2009 bring as many (0r more) blessings as 2008!

Christmas Cheer

This Christmas season with Sam has been a blast. Last Christmas was all sweet and sentimental since it was his "first" Christmas, but this one takes the cake for fun and excitement. Probably more for mommy and daddy, but still.

I think I have come to the conclusion that Christmas, especially in the early years may really be more fun for the parents. I had so much fun shopping and wrapping and anticipating Sam's reaction to receiving his gifts. I was so ridiculously excited. Dave was too. It was really fun. Perhaps we went a bit overboard with the gifiting... I tried to steer away from the plastic and batteries... :)

We have had a very full Christmas holiday. We ended up spending Christmas Eve at home. It turned out to be fairly quiet because I managed to pick up the dreaded bug that Sam had harbored the week before. Grandpa came over, solo because Melissa was also feeling poorly. We ended up getting some Chinese takeout and then called it a night early.

Sam woke up early Christmas morning all excited. I'll chalk that up to kid intuition! Fortunately we all went back to sleep for a bit. My illness was in full force so I had to be somewhat of a bystander whilst nursing a cup of coffee! We had a few unwrapped presents under the tree and those caught the little man's attention first. Eventually we coaxed him into checking out what was UNDER the paper rather than play with the already open gifts! Once he discovered what was under the paper, he was content to check out that toy/book/puzzle. We still have unwrapped gifts at home because we ran out of time! We had a fantastic, relaxing morning at home. It was really nice to have a quiet Christmas morning. After nap, we headed out to Grandpa's for Christmas dinner. It was us and Grandpa and Melissa, her mother and some family friends. We had a blast. It was the best Christmas day in ages. Sam loved getting to play with the young ones there and also loved the MORE gifts he received! The meal was fantastic and Melissa had decorated the house to the nines! Perfect.

Christmas happened again on Friday when we rose ourselves out of a perfect slumber and caught an early flight to Grandma and Grandpa Tim's in Florida. Sam looked at Grandma quizzically at first then gave her a big smile. He, of course, got even more presents after arriving here! Grandma got him a little more plastic than we did! Sam's been having a blast swimming in the pool (at least twice a day) and roaming around the house holding court. The little man is certainly the one calling the shots. Its hysterical. He has taken to the Florida lifestyle quite well and is toddling around in his shorts and sandals with pride! I think we may never go back to the cold...

We'll enjoy another 6 days here then head back home to reality and another Christmas because a delayed box from the Mississippi family apparently just arrived at our doorstep. More presents!! I think we're going to have to put some presents away and rotate the toys. I'm overwhelmed at all of them!

I definitely need to get to posting pics to this blog soon. We have some good ones of the little man this holiday season! Until then...

Seriously???

So apparently when Sam gets sick, he means business.  Last week he had a cold.  An annoying, snotty, sneezy, cold.  He finally starts to get over said cold and move through life as usual.  Well, both Saturday and Sunday evenings, Sam became increasingly irritable as the day would go on.  I used my mommy checklists - hunger, diaper, sleep, boredom...  He was not easily satisfied.  I didn't think much of it...  Then I pick him up at Grandpa's on Monday evening.  He was a BEAR despite having had a great nap and a great morning.  So I chalk it up to separation anxiety (we've had this issue developing now that we've started daycare) and head home.  At bedtime, I'm passing him off to daddy for the toothbrushing, book aspect of our routine and think to myself, "self, this boy seems hot".  Sure enough, he had a 102 degree temp.  Eh, Tylenol and bed should fix it, no problem...

So yesterday, Sam wakes up with a 103 degree fever.  Darn!  No daycare, work schedule shuffle, etc.  It was our indoctrination to this new phenomenon.  I HAD to work so Dave got to stay home and then Grandpa came to pinch hit until I got home...  My poor dude was SO miserable.  He even fell asleep on my chest in the afternoon.  It was so hard to get the fever down... But other than no appetite, I couldn't figure out what was wrong.  He had no other symptoms.  So, we went to bed last night hoping the fever would break and we would carry on.

Fast forward to this morning.  Sam has found her way into our bed around 2:30 and was sleeping great.  Then I wake up at 6 from a deep sleep to him spewing bile in my face.  YUMMY.  Fortunately that was an isolated incident.  However, the temperature was 104!  So we got to go to his pediatrician this morning.  Our visit started with a benign assessment.  Then we got to go to the lab for a CBC and blood culture.  After that, we had to kill some time waiting for the blood results so we hit up the amazing (note sarcasm here) cafeteria since I managed not to have breakfast.  The blood results came back a little off so his pedi decided to give him an antibiotic shot, except it was two shots because the dose was too large to give in one shot.  She also needed to catheterize him for a urine culture.  He wasn't so fond of that.  On top of it all, she ordered x-rays based on his history of a cold/cough and the vomiting of bile this morning.  Wow.  We did a lot of stuff in three hours.  He passed out after all of that!

The good news-so far, everything is negative.  The blood culture results won't be available until tomorrow.  His x-rays looked fine.  His urine is good so far, too.  That's a relief, for sure.  On top of that, after another bout with high fever this afternoon, he seems to be much better.  Hopefully, the antibiotic did its job and the worst is over.  That would be good.  This fever business has been no fun.  He's been so cuddly and pathetic.  Its sad!

I've come to the conclusion that when Sam gets sick, he means business.  There's no in between with this kid!

The Quilted Quicker Picker Upper (aka Independence)

I'm a delinquent poster...

Sam has joined the ranks of "I'll do it myself, thanks".  This morning he would NOT eat his oatmeal.  That is, until I relinquished control of the spoon.  A little light bulb went off above his head.  For the next 30 minutes Sam laboriously dipped his spoon in the cereal then licked off the miniscule amount he managed to get to stick to the spoon.  Oh, but it was FUN.  Once he realized how painstaking it was to eat oatmeal speck by speck, he turned to his fingers as a much more useful and efficient dining instrument.

Fast forward 30 minutes or so...  Sam found one of his plastic cups in the cabinet.  Not a sippy, a "real" cup.  I, the obliging mother, assemble a sippy cup and fill it with water.  I mean, he must be thirsty, right?  Sam follows me with his big kid cup and holds it up to the fridge, right by the water dispenser.  Ohhhhhhhhhh... he wants his water in the real cup.  Great.  So, I put a splash of water (I've learned never to put more than a sip in a open cup with him).  Of course, we have had 3-4 "uh oh" moments resulting in said sip on the floor.  There was one successful swallow of water involved in this process.  Hey, batting .250 ain't terrible!

So, I'm resigned to the fact that I will be buying stock in Bounty.  Those paper towels really are the best.  Those quilts, they really absorb.  As we struggle with learning new tricks, there are bound to be messes.  This is clearly an important stage of development.  I can't be packing him sippy cups in his boxes for college, nor can I show up in the dining hall every morning to feed him oatmeal.  Why does this learning business have to be so darn messy?

A side note an and added bonus is that they must be teaching him to clean up in daycare.  The other day after he spilled some water on the floor, he pulled the dishrag off the stove and blotted up his mess.  Here's hoping that he learns the old adage "if you mess it up, clean it up".

Winter... brrr...

Wow, so winter is here. Its going to be a long haul! Sam and I have been flying solo a lot this week because Daddy has been tied up three evenings in a row. Wednesday evening was our ultimate mom and baby adventure. After nap we bundled up and trekked up to the Burlington Mall to meet Sam's friend Gavin and his mom. We hit up the new play area which was quite fun. Everything is padded, squishy and new. Its right in the food court so its out in the open. Sam loved it. Then he got Chick Fil A for his dinner. He thought that was equally exciting. After that we hit up all the toy-ish stores the mall has to offer. Wow. What a stimulating evening! But hey, I was out of the house. We have got to find more interesting things to do or I will need to go back to work full time!

Last winter I have fond memories of hanging out with our baby friends and being a mall rat or cozied up in someone's house. Sam is a lot more fun, a lot more predictable and a lot more animated than last winter. However, he is a lot more high maintenance, too. This means the hours of meandering through the mall, pausing to nurse in the cushy bathrooms, are over. Maybe he'll sit in the stroller for a bit, but certainly not for hours and there are no more stroller naps, either. If we get together with friends at a play space or someone's house, new challenges also arise. The kids all go in their own direction. I can't remember the last time I finished a conversation with another mom! Moming a toddler is a lot more challenging in the winter.

So, as this week offers us our first taste of winter, I have to get creative. We will definitely be seeing more insides of malls. This time for the playspace and not the shopping and gelato... Perhaps story time at the library? Museusm? Any other wild suggestions are always welcom.

We're travelling for Thanksgiving this week. We will have Daddy around all week and a whole slew of family. Maybe I can sneak out for a few minutes!? Me time? Nah!

A breakthrough?

No splashing in the water bowl.  Not a one single time.  Is it too soon to say, this might just work?  Here's to hoping.

The new thing is clamoring up onto the ottoman, standing, then jumping.  A bit more risky than the dog bowl.

I have a true, 100%, bonafide, boy.