Friday, February 27, 2009

Got Tubes?


Yes We Do! Noah did so great. That place is like a tube factory! It seriously was an assembly line with baby after baby lined up for tubes. It took all of 10 minutes. He was fussy when he woke up, and the nurse first said we had to stay there for 15 minutes, but after about 3 minutes, Noah was screaming so loud she said he might do better if we just left. I'm pretty sure she wanted us out for her own sanity, but as soon as we walked outside, he quit crying and hasn't cried since. He woke up at 4:45 this morning looking for a bottle, so I got up with him and we watched Praise Baby and Baby Einstein and then it was time to go. We are all pretty tired, so I am about to try to get him down for a nap so I can get one too!

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Noah. Tubes. Tomorrow.

BRING. IT. ON.

I am so tired of this baby being sick. Apparently, little man's ears are horrible. After Dr. Laura told us that she couldn't think of another baby who needed tubes more than Noah, we thought, ok, so this is pretty bad. After we met with the ENT, the bad-ness was confirmed. He felt like Noah has had gunk behind his eardrums since December. He is probably not hearing very well, and it could absolutely be affecting his development. And that Noah is probably miserable at night. That hurts a Mommy's heart. He insisted that Noah be squeezed into his next day in the ER, which is tomorrow morning. We have to be there at 6:30, and he is the first one on the schedule at 6:45. No food after midnight, which will not be fun when Noah wakes up at 2 a.m. Party at our house, you are invited. Bring earplugs.

I am so hopeful that this is the answer to our prayers and that tomorrow we bring home a happier, healthier Noah Red. Yay tubes!

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Wonder Girl






This last week has given Hope a few days to be able to play outside quite a bit. Something she really loves, and needs! She is such an explorer and is so full of wonder. It is fun to see.









She wants to be able to Hula Hoop so badly, but she just can't do it. It can really frustrate her, but this day, she just kept trying and had fun doing it.















Here is the full of wonder part. She finds the littlest thing and studies it. She comes up with quite a collection when she goes outside and places all her "treasures" on her little picnic table. She liked the lines in this leaf.














Another treasure...The Holey rock. Funny to hear her describe this rock with little holes in it!







Day Out With Daddy







On Valentine's Day, I knew I was going to be gone most of the day for our friends' wedding. We didn't have a babysitter, so John was on full time daddy duty. He planned a day out to the Museum of Discovery and the Zoo. John's parents came into town to join in the fun. He didn't get a lot of pictures, but at least he got some! They were all exhausted at the end of the day!

Sleepy head


I just love it when babies fall asleep in their highchairs. This is a rare event for Noah Red!

Valentine's Party

Hope with the wonderful Ms. Kendra. We love her!





So, obviously this is old news! I am behind on some blogging. These pictures are from Hope's Valentine's Day party at school. She borrowed a very beautiful (:-)) sparkly Valentine dress from her cousins and was so excited about her party. Our babies don't usually go to school on Fridays, but this was a special occasion (plus I had my follow up appendectomy appointment, so it worked out well!) She skipped into school and twirled around for everyone she saw. When I arrived for the party, it was pretty much over. They were done eating, and were playing with a bubble machine someone had brought for show and tell. She was such a sweet Valentine princess!

Friday, February 20, 2009

Look Who's Crawling


It's Noah Red! Woo Hoo! The boy literally figured this out overnight. Now, he still hasn't figured out how to roll from his tummy to his back, but crawling can be knocked off the list of things he needs to work on.


He also pulled up this week for the first time. But only once. I put him to bed, and I usually let him cry for 15 minutes. If he doesn't calm down I will go try to feed him and put him down. Anyway, after 15 minutes he was still screaming like crazy. I couldn't image what he was so freaked out about. So I go in his room, and he has pulled up on the side and he is terrified and hanging on for dear life. Bless his heart, he didn't know how to get back down. I really wanted to run get my camera, but he looked so so pitiful I had to rescue him. I have been told since then that I should have shown him how to sit down before I grabbed him. oops. Next time I will know.
At his 9 month check up he weighed 17.5 pounds, was 27.5 inches long and all his percentages were just about where they always are. His ears are still infected (and have been since early December.) Dr. Laura said she cannot think of another baby who has ever needed tubes more than Noah Red. They are coming baby boy. We meet with the ENT on the 24th. Hopefully they will get him in soon.
He is officially caught up with his immunizations. Dr. Bob should be proud. After much more research, I have decided to do all of the rest of his immunizations as scheduled, including the MMR. (assuming we have no crazy reactions between now and then.) If you are interested in my reasons, I will post later, because I have really really been back and forth on this for months, and made the decision just a few days before this last appointment. Overall, I think immunizations are a wonderful thing. Wonderful. If we all quit immunizing our kids we are inviting horrible awful life threatening preventable diseases back into our environment. However, I do think that kids react differently to vaccines, and it is up to us mothers to decide what is best for our children on an individual basis. I did not have any questions about immunizing Hope. She never had any reactions. Noah, had a few minor reactions to his early shots which made me hit the brakes on the vaccines while I collected information and, with John, evaluated Noah's situation.
Noah is working on tooth #6! Teeth are just breaking through like crazy!

Computer Woes

My computer has a very yucky nasty virus on it. We think. It is just a black screen. It does not look good. I am using John's computer right now, but my computer being out of comission will definitely hurt my blogging. I haven't even gotten to post all my edited pictures I have been working on, and now I fear they are lost forever. Stay tuned...

Hope-isms and Noah-isms of the last few weeks




So, there have been some funny stories going on here in the last few weeks that I need to write down before I forget.




*Hope and I were leaving the grocery store last week and there was a woman smoking a cigarette standing near our car. Now, I am not a fan of smoking, but to my knowledge, I have not had the "smoking is bad " conversation with my daughter. Anyway, she starts hacking up a lung and saying as loudly as possible "EWWWW she is SMOKING! ...Smoking is BAD...Smoking is NASTY!...Cough Cough..." and on and on again, and the whole time I am saying shhh and trying to shove her in the car as quickly as possible and looking for a hole in the earth that I can crawl into and hide. Then, right before I shut the door, Hope says "SHE'S GONNA DIE, RIGHT MOM?!!" Oh Lord, please help me was my prayer. Where is the hole? I just said "oh honey, I hope not." And tried to smile at the woman who was understandably looking away from me and probably looking for her hole to crawl into as well.




* My mom was so graciously bringing my children home to me on Thursday and was getting near my house while I was talking to her on the phone. Hope starts crying and trying to tell my mom something, so we get off the phone. My mom calls me back to say, meet us outside. bring your camera. There was Noah, covered in chocolate, with not one, but two chocolate chip cookies, one in each hand. My niece Riley had put two cookies in my mom's purse to save them for later. My mom had put her purse in her market basket, which she had sat between Noah and Hope's carseats. Noah had swiped the cookies and was going to town. Hope was so mad that HE was eating those cookies and not her. My mom thought that Hope was crying because she was scared for Noah, but no, my girl wants the cookies. Apparently so does the boy. After I took pictures of him, I handed Hope a cookie. She was totally disgusted by the slobber on it, but decided to eat around the slobber. I told you, she wants the cookies.




* Hope takes Spanish at school. I am aware that she takes Spanish, but I never push the issue and ask what she learned or anything like that, I just have thought, oh it's good exposure, but never really even thought about her actually learning the language. Something that I should have considered, since I myself do not know any Spanish. A few weeks ago, John was chasing her around the house and she cried out "Mas de espacio!" He stopped and said "what?" She repeated it back to him. And then she remembered she had spoken in Spanish and said "It means SLOW DOWN." John cracked up and ran and got on the internet to see if she was right. She was. She was thinking in Spanish. Crazy. She has said other things here and there not thinking, like saying playa for beach, etc. Then, this morning for breakfast she said to her daddy, "For breakfast I want a manzana. With some leche." (Apple with milk.) I have bought a Spanish to English dictionary for our house for obvious reasons.




In other news, these are not particularly funny, but things I want to remember as well:


* Hope is always looking for affirmation. She ends a lot of statements with "Right, Mom?" Like, "I am a great helper, Right Mom?" Or, "Noah is very little, right Mom?" Or, as explained above, when she sees a smoker..."SHE'S GONNA DIE, RIGHT MOM?"


* She knows her right from her left.


* She is going through a very pouty stage right now. She gets her feeling hurt and she just folds those arms and will not answer, will not eat, will not look at you, will not move until you can snap her out of it. I have recently found that imitating her usually make her laugh and snap out of. Oh, and I also try to take a picture of the pout. She really hates that.


* She is starting to understand math concepts. She can add and subtract just about any numbers under 10.


* She loves to cut paper with scissors. I bought this awesome Kumon book at Target for her called "Let's Cut Paper." If you have a preschooler, get this book. It has pages and pages of pictures, designs, games etc of things for her to cut out. It is really a good buy.


* Her reading is really out of control. She can now sound out many not so simple words. She has several easy reader books that she can read all the way through without any help at all.


* She also memorizes books that we read often. She can recite "Pinkalicious" with or without the book. Her favorite pretend game right now is to pretend that she has "a very acute case of pinkititis." We have to pretend to go see Dr. Wink (usually played by yours truly) and pretend to eat lots of green vegetables. If you have never read the book, I realize you have no clue what I'm talking about. Go get the book. It's a good one.


Friday, February 13, 2009

Teacher of the Year!!!


We got to do something really fun last night. We found out that my sister was going to receive the "Teacher Of The Year" award at a PTA meeting last night, and that she had no idea she was getting it! So fun! So, we had to be sneaky and hide in Kindergarten Pod until the meeting got underway, because if she saw all of us at a PTA meeting she would know something was up. After they called her name, we all came out and this is when she spotted us! It's a bad picture but you get it. She was shocked!

We of course already knew she was awesome, but for her to be recognized with this award was so cool. Congratulations Nenny!

Noah is 9 Months Old!

This is becoming increasingly difficult!
This dude does not want to cooperate with the Noah + Bear + Baby monthly pictures.


We had to call in for reinforcements...

This is sadly the best we got.

Notice daddy's hands holding Mr. Squirmy's legs.
We resorted to the backup sitting up with the bear pictures. Maybe I should try these when he is asleep next time.










These pictures are very late. Noah turned 9 months old on the same day that I had my appendectomy. Better late than never, right? He hasn't been for his official 9 month check up either, but he did have an appointment for yet another ear infection this week. He was 17 pound 14 ounces with clothes on (which is more than Hope weighed at 1 year!) We got a referral to see the ENT for tubes. Woo Hoo! Bring it on! I am so tired of him being sick. He has had a constant ear infection since December. We go on the 18th for his 9 month check up, and Dr. Laura said to expect to receive a referral for physical therapy to work on the rolling from back to front. Unless he figures it out in the next 5 days! He is just not interested.

He has 4 teeth now, and not the 4 you would expect. He has the two middle ones on the bottom, and the two eye teeth (fangs!) on the top. It looks a bit odd! We are hoping to see the top middle ones soon! He loves to eat anything in sight. His favorite toys are phones and a ball toy that Ross got him for Christmas. He could stay in the bath for hours if we let him. He hates to have his diaper changed, and flips onto his tummy as soon as you lay him down. He also has an unnatural ability to claw skin as soon as he touches you. He prefers to claw necks, but will settle for arms or legs if thats all he can get. He babbles all day. He loves Baby Einstein and Praise Baby (it's like Baby Einstein but has contemporary worship songs on it.) Still not crawling, but can get up on his knees. Not pulling up yet either, but seems to be interested. He has slept through the night a couple of times this month, but for the most part is still up several times during the night. I blame the ears for most of the night wakings. Hopefully tubes will help!

Monday, February 09, 2009

Skype

We joined the Skype world today. Here is John from Baton Rouge. Hola Daddy. Have you joined?

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Technical Difficulties




John bought me a new photo editing software, and it has me all kinds of confused. I am still trying to figure out how to organize and edit pictures to then post here. I am playing with it, and I will be back...soon! I just wanted to post a couple of my favorite pictures from the park this weekend. I have about 40 more I want to share. Maybe tonight I can sit down and figure it out again...maybe!