Baby girl isn't a baby anymore!

Oh my goodness, Elizabeth is getting so big!  She just figured out how to walk and the next thing I knew she is toddling all around the house!  I think she is just adorable wondering here and there, but you can be the judge.

She is also so much better at communication than Jason was at this age.  In the morning as soon as she sees Jeff, even before he has seen her, she starts waving and says "hi" and is always telling us "up."  Her "bye, bye" with a wave will melt your heart.  She will also answer yes or no questions with shaking her head or nodding it and adding a "ya."  I know she will have her own challenges, but it makes me happy that Elizabeth doesn't have a problem communicating.

Elizabeth does know her own mind also.  If you try to walk her somewhere she doesn't want to go, she will stop in her tracks and pull against you.  Yesterday was pretty warm but at 2 in the afternoon a little girl was banging at the back door wanting to go out and play.  She would not be detered, so outside we went.  Elizabeth knows what she wants!

spying on the kids

My kids aren't always kind to each other, but when they are they sure are cute about it!  Please excuse the sound of meat cooking in the background.

Memorial Weekend

The difficult thing about water parks is that you don't bring your camera in fear of it getting wet, or because you don't want to carry another big honking thing around all day when you have sunscreen and towels and snacks for the kids.  So you don't take pictures of your kids having a wonderful time at Schlitterbahn, but believe me they did!  They splashed and played in the water for 2 days straight and loved every second of it.  Jeff's parents were so kind and stayed with Jason and Elizabeth (and their stuff) while the "big kids" went to some of the rides.  Aunt Michelle was wonderful and let us crash at her house.  The best part was that Elizabeth walked to each of her parents a couple of times this weekend.  Soon enough we will be able to say that we have another toddler in the house!  The one bad part was that I burned my shoulders pretty bad, but at least the kiddos stayed all sunscreened up.

On another note, today is Jeff and my 7 year anniversary!  Seven years down and many, many more to go!

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!