You're so vain

Before we had kids Jeff and I discussed self esteem.  My parents did exactly what you are told to do and lavished praise on my brothers and I, but a least a few of us dealt with self esteem issues growing up.  From what I have observed, Jeff's parents, especially his mother, tend to be more honest about the kids achievements and telling them when she knew they hadn't preformed their best.  Jeff has never had an issue with his self esteem.  Who knows it might be a nature vs. nurture debate.

But one thing I do know is that Jason has no issue with his self esteem.  He may even be a little bit vain.  He has been known to go around telling people that he is "quite intelligent."  This morning as I was combing his hair he told me that he feels handsome.  Jason loves to be chased around the couch, but his downfall is that he always stops to check himself out in any reflective surface.  You have to be covert in taking his picture or video because he always wants to see it, even before you have had a chance to take it.  I the video you will notice he isn't actually saying that he wants to sing, he is saying he wants to see.  I intentionally misinterpreted him to get him to do something cute while Elizabeth was being videoed walking with Daddy.  At the end he couldn't be persuaded to sing so we had to stop to show him the video.

What is the cure for vanity?  Should vanity be cured in a 3 year old?  I mean he is right.  He is handsome and smart.  He doesn't exactly go around telling strangers this, just Mom and Dad, so maybe it is okay for now.

opps: After re-watching the video I realized that I edited out the annoying "I want to see, see, see!" from my 3 year old.  I'll leave this video on here until I can find another good one of him being as self focused.

Right hand wrap-up

On April 25th we headed back to Dallas to get Jason's cast off and reveil his new hand.  He was pretty excited and was telling everyone how he would have 5 fingers!  He even did better than expected when they cut off the cast.  If you have ever had a cast cut off after breaking an apendage you know that the saw they use looks pretty intimidating.  Thankfully it is standard procedure to have a towel between the arm and his face to be sure none of the bits fly into his eyes, nose or mouth.  So Jason didn't end up seeing all that much, but we held him down all the same.  Before we knew it the cast was off and we were looking at his new hand.  It was pretty gross looking.  Sorry I didn't take any photos so you will just have to take my word for it, but it was scabby and red and flaking skin.  Generally speaking it looked pretty unpleasant.  After we got it all cleaned up Jason wanted to look at it for a bit but then asked for a bandage to be put on. 


After a couple of days we got it worked out so he would just wear this sleeve over his fingers to allow them to dry out and form scabs.  Eventually he forgot to have us keep putting on what he called his "bandage."  Now most of the time he doesn't mind people looking at his fingers which is good because we are going back to have the doctors take a look at them in a couple of weeks.  At the same appointment we are also going to talk about Elizabeth's hands and the plan for them (somebody hold me, I'm not ready!)

Before

After

Everyone (the doctors, nurses, Jeff and his mom) keep saying how well Jason's fingers look.  I guess I was just overly optimistic when I hoped some of his joints would work in his fingers.  For example when he goes to make a fist the ring and middle finger still point straight out.  The top knuckle of the middle finger does bend, but I hoped for a little more.

Fortified

Wow, a lot of stuff has been going on around here lately.  I will start with a post I have been meaning to put up for a week, but haven't had a chance to.  Last weekend my wonderful father in law and husband built a fort for our children.  When we were looking at buying houses I said that I wanted an area the kids to could play safely and have a playground.  So we started looking at playgrounds and decided we liked the Skyfort from Sam's Club. 



It was delivered on Tuesday in four boxes and a slide.  That night we started taking out and inventorying pieces.  By Wednesday night we had all the boxes unpacked and were able to put a protective coating on the wood.  I spent a lot of the day Thursday organizing everything so the guys could find it and Thursday afternoon they got started.







On Friday they were delayed a bit by the on and off rain, but were able to make some good progress.  It was starting to look like a fort by the end of the day.



Saturday ended up being quite a cold day, but that made it a bit nicer for working.  The sun was shining so the guys ended up getting a lot done.





Let me out to play!

After chuch on Sunday there didn't seem to be much left and we thought they would just breeze through and have most of the evening left, but we were wrong!  They finished as day was closing, but they did finish!





The kids love playing on their new fort and we go out almost once a day.

Coming soon: cast removal

Surgery recap

Pre-surgery playing Candyland with Grandma

Friday our big boy had his surgery to separate his fingers.  I was feeling pretty anxious about this, but we didn't tell Jason until the night before.  We didn't even really go into the details about the doctor performing the surgery.  We just talked about how now he has 4 fingers and the doctor is going to give him 5 fingers.  We also talked about how after the surgery he would have a cast that he had to keep dry.  We explained that we will be getting him out of bed really early the next morning and getting directly into the car. 


The next morning was very early as the adults got up at 3:45 so that everyone and everything was loaded into the car, ready to go by 4:05.  We were supposed to get to the hospital between 6:30 and 7am, but we were concerned about traffic so we actually ended up getting there at 5:30.  I nursed Elizabeth and changed both kids into their clothes and before we knew it we were ready to go in.  We left Grandma and Elizabeth to see if they could find us some breakfast while Jeff and I went up to the day surgery until with Jason.  There was lots of waiting around which ended up bothering Jason.  He was already wary of what was going to happen and didn't really want to sit around.  He ended up getting what they call "goofy juice" at about 7:30.  It didn't take very long for that to kick in and before we knew it he was talking about big sunscreen.  The hardest part of the day was when they said it was time to hug him and say goodbye.  He was off to surgery at 8am and we knew the juice must have worked because he let the nurses wheel him away from Mommy and Daddy without a fuss. 



Jason on the goofy juice


I kept it together until he was wheeled off and couldn't help shed a few tears.  Then it just became a waiting game.  We went down and joined Grandma and Elizabeth for breakfast and played on the playground at the hospital.  We were told that the surgery should last about two and a half hours.  My heart dropped a little when one of the nurses called Jeff's phone, but it was just to say that everything was going well, but it would still be a little while.  We went back up to our little cubical to wait for Jason to come back.  He didn't end up finishing up until 11:30 and then there was a half an hour in recovery.  Waiting for that 2 hours was pretty hard, but we were so happy to see our sleeping boy when he came back to us.  The doctor came to see us while he was in recovery and let us know that Jason did very well and he was able to remove the extra bones and the fingers pinked up nicely. 


We wanted to be sure he could see Pooh Bear when he woke up.



After some juice and crackers, feeling a bit better and ready to head home.


It took about an hour for Jason to wake up, but when he did he was pretty dazed.  After Juice and some crackers he felt a bit better, but he was still pretty groggy.  We got some medicine and got everything all packed up and headed back home.  Jason slept most of the way home and just rested on the couch when we got there.  He didn't ask for any medicine, but that night we gave him regular Acetaminophen, not the one with Codeine that we had been given at the hospital.  When we do this again that is not an error I will make.  He was so exhausted that he passed out at first, but at about 11:30 when the drugs wore off he woke up and I gave him some more, then at 3:30 we did the same thing, but he kept fussing and couldn't sleep because his "fingers were stuck" and his hand hurt.  I felt so bad for him, but I couldn't give him another dose of anything for another 4 hours.  I cuddled him and we both fell asleep in his bed until Elizabeth started crying.  I got up with Jason still sleeping and tried to get Elizabeth back to sleep.  After not too long it was time for her morning feeding and she fell back asleep then Jason woke up for the day.  I was so thankful to get a nap that afternoon.


Sunday Jason passed out in the closet among his stuffed animals.  Carrying around that cast takes some extra work

Most of the weekend we watched a lot of Mickey Mouse clubhouse and cuddled.  We did get some manual labor out of Grandma and Jeff who did some work on the yard and bushes on Sunday.  Jason is getting used to using his club and hasn't even hit his sister with it yet (I did get a wallop in the face though.)  We covered the cast with a tie dyed tube sock that the hospital gave us and I am thinking about making a few more that look like sock puppets.  Jason has suggested a rocket ship, snake and lizard.  I'll see what my remedial sewing skills can do.  All in all we are doing okay and will survive the ordeal.  We are patiently waiting for the big reveal on April 25th!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

I can't believe my baby girl is one!!!  This year has just flown by even faster than Jason's first year.  I have been amazed by the differences between our kids.  Elizabeth is much cuddlier than Jason was at this age.  She also loves to eat almost everything we put in front of her, but her favorites are peas.  It was a battle to get Jason to eat anything slightly healthy.  Neither of the kids has walked by their first birthday.  When Elizabeth started crawling at 7 months we were sure she would be walking by now, but she is content to crawl around the house. 

We brought cupcakes to church with us on Sunday for the congregation to help us celebrate.  Monday was a pretty normal day while Daddy was at work and after we had dinner we needed to do a photo shoot with our pretty girl.  I made her a onesie that had a cupcake with a one on it and a tutu to wear.  She hated crawling in the tutu so it came off after a while.  After we came in and Jason helped Elizabeth open her gifts.  Elizabeth got a bunch of new clothes, but her favorite thing was the tea set that brother loves to help her play with.  After that we sang happy birthday and had the family favorite of chocolate cake!  Elizabeth dug in!

We have a tooth...or two!

So I've dropped the ball a bit and haven't updated since Jason's birthday, sorry!  Now we have Elizabeth's birthday coming up in just a few days!  I will be sure to update after that is over and let you know if I cried.  At the end of February we traveled to San Antonio to see the rodeo with Jeff's family.  We saw lots of animals and lots of shopping.  We even got to try a fried snickers.  While we were in San Antonio Elizabeth had her 11 month birthday.

It seems like March has all it's events packed into next week.  The only thing that we really had going on was a visit from Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Michael on their way to Missouri for Spring Break.  Unfortunatly it was a rainy weekend so we didn't get to go out and do much while they were here.  Next week will be a huge week with something planned almost every day.  Monday is Elizabeth's birthday and, although we aren't having a party we will be celebrating as a family and can't wait to spend this special day with her.  Tuesday Jason has speach therapy at the Elementary School.  He has been going since his birthday and I am so proud of his improvement.  I am also so proud that he goes off with the teacher by himself and behaves.  Wednesday we normally do story time at the library, but both Elizabeth and I have doctor appointments.  Thursday I am planning on cleaning up the house in anticipation of Grandma Salomon coming to visit.  On Friday we have Jason's surgery scheduled.

We had scheduled his hand surgery for the end of February, but about a week and a half before that Jason got a bad cough.  When I called up the nurse from the hand center she told me they didn't like to put children under general anesthesia when they have had a recent respiratory infection.  I hated doing it, but we had to postpone his surgery for the end of this month.  I really didn't want to go through the whole anticipation process again and I wanted him to be fully recovered before it was warm enough to get in the pool.  Maybe if we can hurry to schedule the second hand surgery we will be able to swim by Memorial Day.

Someone else was feeling pain this week.  Elizabeth has been a pretty good sleeper since we Ferbered her a couple of months ago.  A week ago she had a night where she woke up every half hour starting at 3 until I finally got up with her at 5:30!  It wasn't until St. Patrick's Day that we figured out the problem.  Our little girl finally got her first tooth!  Followed quickly by her second over this week!  She must have gotten her late teething from me.  Now the big milestone is walking and you never know for sure when that will come!

Yippy! Jason is Three!

Jason turned 3 on Sunday and we are so in love with our little boy!



We spent most of the day at home, but they did sing Jason happy birthday at church.  Jason loved all the trains and tracks and all the gifts he recieved.  We took him out to dinner at the resturant of his choice, McDonald's. 


Playing with Daddy




Playing trains with sister



Happy Birthday big boy!