Gardner Village Witch Hunt

Every year (since we've lived here) we've headed out to good ole Gardner Village for the annual witch hunt. This year I'm feeling like a stellar mom because we have been three times! Unfortunately, the first, with the camera was over UEA weekend. Yup, there we were with a gazillion other folks. We had to wait in line for these pictures. It was one of those, Come on sweetie quick smile, please?????" And then child is too busy watching other kids to even look at the camera.

Now this litte guy I've got trained. Katie tolerates my picture taking while this little guy hams it up. Pretty cute if I do say so myself!

OUCH!

My poor baby got stung by a wasp yesterday. And, the kicker is, he was playing in our house!!! (This picture doesn't do it near the justice it deserves. But, I was to preoccupied to take a picture until I knew he was ok!)

I was literaly sitting 3 ft from him. He was playing with the Weebles and all of a sudden he started to wimper cry. It was that cry that something was really hurting him and he was scared. I looked around trying to see what the problem was. He has been teething lately so I figured that he had tried to eat the toy and hurt his gums. Well he continued the wimper cry and was trying to suck on his left thumb. I went over to pick him up and when I looked down at the Weeble there was this huge wasp on it. I totally freaked! Immediately I'm thinking anaphylaxis? What if it stung him in his mouth? When I picked him up he really started to whine more. Then I started to cry as I ran upstairs to look for some Benadryl. Of course, we didn't have any Benadryl. Note to self ---BUY SOME BENADRYL!

Lukily, I did find Afterbite that I had bought for camping. (If you don't have this I highly recommend it.) After searching visible body parts and I finally found it had stung him on his left palm. It was swelling up fast. In a matter of 5 minutes his arm was swollen to his elbow. Panic set in again. I debated, do I throw him in the car and drive to the hospital or wait it out. I decided since he wasn't showing any signs of having a hard time breathing I would just watch him. And watch him I did--like a hawk for the next hour or so. Once I put the medicine on his hand he clamed down quite a bit. After and hour or two the swelling even went down. Luckily my baby boy is ok now. And the hunt begins for the wasp. I'm gonna kill him!!!

Poor Katie is scared to death now of "swaps" in our house and with good reason. She was in tears when she woke up from her nap and saw Joey's hand. I love that she has such concern for him at such a young age. I hope they always look out for each other.

Maddy & Dawson

MADDY

I had so much fun with this little lady. Aren't her cheeks so squishy and cute?! Her mom had some of the best things to put in her hair. It really makes me want to have another girl.

DAWSON

Cute Dawson! This guy LOVES trains. So, of course, we had to have the train in his pictures. He also wanted to make sure the trains could see him when they weren't in the pictures!

At 9 Months

At nine months my little guy is growing way to fast. I find myself wanting to hog all of his attention just because it's going all too fast. I just want to freeze him and savor each moment. His cheeks are way too squishing and warm and his jac-o-lantern toothy grin just melts me heart.

A few little tidbits about the "other" man in my life:

*18 lbs 1 oz. and 18 1/4 inches. I'm still wondering how he can only be in the 20% when he weighs two pounds more than his sister did at this age. That darn boy vs girl scale!

*He eats more than I have seen any kid his size eat. Even my father in law will vouch for this. I don't know where the kids hides it.
* Favorite foods include anything not tied down that can be put in the mouth. He loves guacamole, bananas, squash and cheerios.
* Still takes three naps a day and sleeps through the night

*I love how he is trying to be brave my doing his sweet little toe taps and full body bouncing while trying to muster up the courage to make it from one piece of furniture to the other. Then when he has, giggling out of pure joy and self satisfaction.

*I love how he lights up in the morning when his big sister comes in to snuggle with me in bed and we play and play in bed before finally giving in to the fact that we need to get out.

* I love that his concentration can be so intense that he removes himself from his support system and stands all on his own for about 1 minute. Then he realizes he is standing by himself, freaks out and sits down.

* I love how thrilled he is that he can walk behind his "toot-toot" all by himself. (I don't love that he will be walking in a short while.)

* I love how he will cuddle into me and his blanket, but it just isn't quite enough if he doesn't have his thumb in his mouth.

* I love the crazing ways the kid can sleep and truth be told I love that right now I am his favorite and safest person!

So, so grateful to have my skinnier, but squishy babe to love for the rest of my life.

Random Ramblings..not for a weak stomach

Todd is currently on the ortho spine service. He has been on call the last 6 days in a row. It's been a bittersweet 6 days. Although he is allowed to stay home during the call time, he may still have to go into the hospital a few times a night. Most of the time he is able to handle the situations from home over the phone. Lucky for me I get to hear most of the phone conversation.

It generally goes somethings like this:

"So and so was injured in a ATV/auto accident and has an incomplete spinal cord injury from C or T or L spine on. There is or is not nerve damage or there is, they have weakness from here to here and then blah, blah, blah."

By this point my stomach is in knots and I'm wondering if spending the night with a garbage can next to the bed is my safest bet. Generally, I can handle most medical jargon and descriptions even if it is over the dinner table. However, there are a few things I just can not stomach! One of them is a discussion about spinal cord injuries and the other is dealing with a patient who has staples in his or her head. (Oh, and of course, my famous post about practically passing out on mother's day into a surgeon's sterile field.)

You can give me a patient with all kinds of nasty drains and tubes or intestines hanging out and I'm totally fine. There is just something about the spinal cord that makes me feel unbelievably nauseous. Perhaps it is because it is such a vital part of the body. You screw it up and your life is forever altered. Now the hole staples in the head I think is quite self explanitory.

When I get a patient at work with staples in their head I really have to focus to keep it together. I have even gone as far as to ask the neighboring nurse to tell me if there was any reason for concern with my patient with staples in his head when I was pregnant. I knew that if I had had to look at it there would have been dier consequences.

So, you can only imagine the waves of nausea I have experienced over the last month and a half and more specifically the last 6 days!

Fun Pics~9 months

It was a serious group effort to get these pictures of Joey. I was laying on my stomach trying to get the best shot before he would crawl away and Katie was doing all sorts of acrobatics to get him to smile, laugh, drool etc..

I think they turned out pretty well. Now I just have to decide which I like the best.

A Very Good Week

Just wanted to document the financial crisis for posterity's sake.

So, despite the fact that my 401K, Katie & Joey's college funds look like this~

It's been a great week!

Lots to be grateful for:

Love, love, love my husband and babes!!

Certainly enjoyed the uplifting and inspiring talks at conference.

Beautiful fall colors.

An awesome/flexible job.

A husband who works soo hard.

(I don't think he left for work later than 4 am or went to bed before 11pm everyday and was on call three nights this week. One night I don't think he slept at all!)

A supercool mom who tends to my babes while I go tend to other peoples' children's wounds.

I could go on, but I think that'll do for today!