Long Month - Long Post

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted. We were in Mississippi for a week and a half, then Sam had his surgery, and my birthday was this weekend -- so we've been a little busy!



Sam's surgery went well last Wednesday. We were at the surgery center at 6:30am. They gave Sam a small sip of "woozy juice" and took him for surgery at 7:30am. The surgery normally lasts 15 to 20 minutes so I was getting a little worried when they didn't come to get us until 30 minutes later. It turns out that Sam was choking a little when he woke up from the anesthesia. I think it was from the drool from his teething, but we didn't really get any more info. As we were warned, Sam was inconsolable after surgery. He drank a little apple juice and fell asleep after 5 or 10 minutes. They let us go home around 8:45am. Sam took two two hour naps and ate mostly applesauce that day. Other than that everything was normal. He had a little bit of drainage for a few days from his left ear. He definitely didn't like the ear drops, but we're done with them for now. We aren't noticing any major changes with Sam after his surgery. He seems to be a little more vocal, but that's about it. We go for our follow up with the ENT this Friday. This is a picture of Sam sleeping hard after the surgery. He never sleeps on his back, especially with his foot outside the crib, so I had to take a picture.



Well, I think we practically packed up the whole house for our trip to Mississippi: two suitcases, a pack-n-play with diaper changing table, a bucket of toys, a bucket of diapers and food, a highchair, a stroller, camera bag, diaper bag. We considered leaving Dallas early, like 5 AM -- ha! We ended up leaving early for us, around 9:30 AM. Sam did pretty well on the trip. Thank God for the DVD player in the truck! Sam LOVED the Baby Einstein videos, he tolerated the Signing Time videos, and had no interest in the Disney movies. The trip usually takes us around 6.5 hours, but it took us more like 8.5 since we had to stop a few more times. And, by the way, there aren't very many McDonald's Playlands any more. We had to just let Sam run around an Applebee's.



We went to Costas and Paola's house first. We hung around the house, relaxed, played with Sam's toys, and had big family meals. Yiayia brought a pork roast and stuffing which Sam loved.



This was the first time that Chris's whole family were able to get together since Sam was born. BTW, as you'll see, Sam isn't really getting the concept of a group photo yet. He only "performs" when he's the star!



Sam loves to get raspberries from Yiayia!



Sam was having a great time with all the attention until he got a little fever. We thought it was from teething, but looking back, I think it was a virus. We tried to go to an urgent care facility, but gave up after waiting two hours when they announce that the wait would be another two to three hours. His fever broke that night, but he was still a little fussy.



Parenting a Toddler 101 - distraction. Here is Sam being distracted by Grandma Mary Lou's little box and a key ring. It was great. He must have played with it for an hour. Here is Sam swimming at Grandma Mary Lou's apartment.



Andrea came over and Melanie came down from Starkville one night for dinner. We had a blast. We even got to meet Andrea's new boyfriend Andrew.



The original reason that we planned the trip to Mississippi was to go to Jon Gammil's reception in Starkville. We hadn't been back to Starkville since we got married in 1996. We took the opportunity to go to Modern Pool and Spa, where Melanie works, to meet Nina. Nina has been a great friend to Melanie and has a granddaughter which is very close to Sam's age.



Here's a photo with Jon and Tammy at their reception. Jon is one of our best friends from college and was in our wedding.



We also got to meet Mark's wife Kelly and daughter Taylor. Mark is Jon's brother. Mark is also one of our best friends from college. Chris and Mark both played in bands and would do shows together. Taylor is two months older than Sam. She is super cute, and is speaking up a storm. Her favorite words seemed to be bracelet, puppy, and cookie.



It was great to see lots of friends from college and we had plenty of time to drive around town and campus. I think Chris is going to do another post later with those pictures.

Back in Indianola, we all dressed in maroon and gray to support Mississippi State in their second game at the NCAA College World Series (but they lost).



Nanner surprised me with a birthday cake. Here's a silly shot of us around the cake.



Sam was quite active during the whole trip and rarely sat still, but he here he is sitting in Nanner's lap for a quick photo.



Lee, Aimee, and Eli came over to Nanner's house for a quick visit on Sunday so we could meet Eli since he didn't go to the reception. Lee and Aimee are also good friends of ours from college. Lee was in the same band as Mark. We actually met up with Lee and Aimee a few years ago for a ski vacation in Winter Park. Eli was born a month after Sam, so Aimee and I have had some good stories to share. Eli is super cute and has the best smile.



I had a quiet birthday. We made a nice dinner and I made a Black Forest Tiara cake. They used to sell mixes specifically for this cake pan in the 80s, but I had to make it up as I went along. I found some examples on the Internet and went from there. It turned out pretty well.



I had a lot of left over batter, so I made some mini muffins for Sam.



He even got to lick his first beater with whip cream. That was one of my favorite things when I was little.



We've been pretty tired lately. First there was all the excitement. Now Sam is waking up a lot at night. Last night was worse than normal. I think he woke up five or six times. Not sure what we are going to do, but we definitely need some sleep. Sam is fine during the day. He's been very happy, and there's no reason to think he's not getting enough sleep. It doesn't seem like he's in pain from teething or anything if we go check on him. He's also not hungry. He hasn't had a bottle in the middle of the night for months. It really just seems like he's waking up and doesn't like being alone. At this point we rarely go get him when he wakes up because that seems to make him stay up longer. Usually, he just wakes up and cries for two to five minutes. If we go check on him, we might be up for 15 to 30 minutes. So basically, we're getting woken up every two or three hours for a few minutes. That doesn't sound very bad, but you can't get any good restorative sleep that way.

Sam has been a lot of fun lately (during the day!). His favorite thing to do open and close things. I swear he could open and close his bedroom door for 10 minutes, take a 5 minute break, and then go back to opening and closing the door for another 10 minutes. He thinks peek-a-boo is hilarious now. He wants to walk every where, all day. He doesn't sit still long at all. We went for a walk on Sunday, and he wanted to push his stroller.



He's starting to try to sign "milk" now. He'll do the sign while he's drinking the milk. He's pretty much on a schedule, so we usually give him milk before he thinks about wanting it. We've started giving him orange juice in a sippy cup with his breakfast. He loves juice, but I think he likes the mess that he can make with it even more. He's really started trying to use his own spoon or fork to feed himself. He'll let me feed him a few bites, but then he wants to do it. I'm having a problem getting past the messy factor. Mostly because he puts his hand in the food and then slings food from his hand or spoon. Then he likes to dump the food out or pour it on the floor. When he actually tries to get the food on the spoon and to his mouth, he can do it. It's just not necessarily his top priority.

But my favorite thing, is when he says E-I-E-I-O. He has a little Old MacDonald lift-the-flap book. It's about ten or twelve pages with E-I-E-I-O twice for each animal. One day he got his book and brought it over to us to read it, and said E-I-E-I-O. I think it's the cutest thing I've ever seen!

P.S. - Sam's top right eye tooth came in last week. Yea!!! Two bottom premolars plus the four canine teeth to go, then we should hopefully get a break until the 2 year molars. I'm actually praying for a break between the premolars and the canines too.

Tubes - 100th Post

Yep, Sam's gonna have to get tubes in his ears. When we went to the doctor for his 12 month check-up on Friday, he was starting to get an ear infection. We ended up getting another antibiotic shot and scheduled an appointment with an ENT, Dr. Champion. We had his ears rechecked on Monday when we went back to the pediatrician for his vaccinations, and the infection was gone, but he still had fluid. Looking back through his chart, his ears have never been free of fluid since the first ear infection when he was five months old. With that history, plus the fact that he failed the hearing test in his right ear, Dr. Champion is recommending tubes. Looks like we are going to have to wait until early July for the surgery based on our schedules.

Sam was 21 lbs 2 oz and 29.75 inches at his check-up which is approximately 25th and 50th percentile respectively. Everything else checked out as expected.



So here's a shot of Sam eating dog food. Yummy! Not really, he put it in his mouth and spit it out. He dumped all of Cleo's food out, then put it back in the bowl one piece at a time. He just wanted to do a little quality control along the way.



Sam is doing very well with his sippy cup and milk. I've still been holding him for every bottle, so now that he's using the sippy cup, I'm trying to let him drink it on his own. He's also been eating very well -- if you count eating a lot of snacks as eating well. He seems to have made the connection that he can tell us what he wants, so he tells me that he wants cheese crackers, banana puffs, baby cheetos, and graham crackers for dinner. I tried to feed him fruits and veggies last night. He just shook his head "no" and pointed at the crackers. I think he ate for an hour. I kept asking him if he was "all done" and he'd shake his head "no" and point at the cheetos. Fun, huh? He did better tonight -- maybe because I hid the snacks so he couldn't see them. He ate chicken, cheese, mashed potatoes, and a jar of baby food fruit. We actually went to a BBQ restaurant for lunch Sunday with Sam and let him eat off our plates: pulled pork and chicken, potato salad, bread, and cinnamon apples. He even tried half of a fried okra! I may be the only person interested/amazed at what he's eating -- I'm just thrilled that he's eating.



We got a little break from the rain this weekend and went swimming both days. The pool actually got up to 83 degrees on Sunday, so we were able to get in the actual pool instead of just the hot tub. Sam had a blast jumping off the wading area.




This is a shot of Sam walking around the house with one of his lift-the-flap books.



Another fun bit of advice that we got from the doctor was to stop getting up when Sam cries in the middle of the night. Now if he's in pain from teething, we can get up and give him medicine, but we shouldn't rock him back to sleep. He shouldn't need any milk in the middle of the night. And, we shouldn't rock him to sleep when we are putting him to bed. It seems kinda mean, but it's a skill that he needs to learn. After two nights, he seems to be able to go back to sleep on his own. It makes naps easier too.



This is Sam playing with a mesh toybox. It seems like it was on his head the whole weekend.

Sam's new word is "uh-oh". He's been saying it for about a week or so. At first he would say "uh-oh" and then drop something, but I think he understands to say it after he drops something or when he falls now.