Lilypie Kids Birthday tickers Lilypie Fifth Birthday tickers

Monday, July 30, 2007

Mr. Bubbles



We gave Sam his first bubble-bath this weekend. He didn't quite know what to think of it at first and even seemed a little scared or confused. But, he started having a great time when Daddy showed him all the fun things he could do with the bubbles. I took this picture after Chris put bubbles all over his face and then blew them on Sam. You can see Sam's earplugs in this picture.



Sam started putting his hand up to his ear and saying "O" when our phone rings. I try to put the phone up to his ear so he can hear the person talking. He gets a big smile on his face, but quickly loses interest and would rather push the buttons. Here he is playing with his toy flip-phone. He puts it up to his ear and we say "hello."



I thought this was cute! ... look close at the bike seat, Sam was taking his weeble for a ride through the house.



Here's a picture that Grandma Mary Lou took of Sam eating pasta at the tearoom in Plano last weekend.

Sam has started singing a little. He mostly does it after we sing him a song, but sometimes he just does it on his own, especially when we are driving somewhere. His favorites are definitely Itsy Bitsy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. He's even started trying to do the movements for Itsy Bitsy Spider. By the way, after throwing the worst screaming fits when we change his diaper for as long as I can remember, Sam is perfectly fine with having his diaper changed now. We started singing to him again when we change his diaper. He loves it. We can sing to him other times when he's upset and it calms him down. It's so sweet.

So I guess Sam is starting to climb. We don't really have anything in our house that he is tall enough to climb yet, or maybe I'm just naive. When we were at the pediatrician's office last week, he was pushing this little baby chair around the room while I was talking to the doctor. Then all of a sudden it got really quiet, so I looked over at him really quick and he was standing in the chair. He looked at me, he made this little squeaky "uh" sound, and got a look on his face which told me he was proud that he got there, but had no idea how to get down. I ran over and grabbed him really quick and put him on the floor. His reaction? Of course he climbed right back up on the chair! Look what I can do!

We went to the ENT this morning. Sam's ear infection is cleared up. The doctor didn't seem to be worried at this point that he got another infection because the tubes did their job and let the fluid drain. She did tell us to come see her instead of his pediatrician if he gets another infection so she can culture it -- I guess to see if it's bacterial or viral. If he keeps getting ear infections, we'll have to explore other options.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Four Generations



My mom and grandmother came to visit for the weekend. Sam was in a great mood. He played hard. I don't think he sat still the whole time. It was nice having so many people around for Sam to play with. Grandma Mary Lou chased him around the house and wore him out.



Mom and I went to Barnes and Noble on Friday and bought Sam some new books. Our new favorite is Skippyjon Jones. It's about a Siamese cat who thinks he's a Chihuahua (Skipito Friskito). It came with a little plush toy Skippyjon that we dance around while we "sing" the Mexican hat dance. I love it that Sam is so interested in books now. We don't always make it through every page, but we have fun trying. When Sam saw that Grandma had some books he raised his arms for her to pick him up. That's funny because she'd only been here for a few minutes and Sam is usually shy.



Grandma got this Rody Pony for Sam. We were playing with it while we were waiting to eat at the tearoom in downtown Plano. Later he was having so much fun bouncing that he didn't want to stop to drink his milk.



Sam has started turning towards us when we say his name. Imagine saying someone's name about a hundred thousand times and getting no response, and then one day, "yes, that's my name, what's going on?" It's just nice, especially when you're taking a picture.



Well, Sam started doing the sign for "more." What, you say? Sam wants more food? Oh no, Sam wants more "Itsy Bitsy Spider." I was trying to distract him by signing to him while Daddy was changing his diaper. When I finished, he did the sign for more. I sang it again, and "more" again. We sang it over and over. It was so much fun!

Sam started waving bye-bye again. He stopped waving when he was around 11 months old. He still won't do it all the time. Mostly he does it when he wants to leave, not when we ask him to. When he got down from the table tonight and started walking away, we waved and said bye-bye, and I swear he waved and said bye-bye back. He did it about three times.




Yes, we had another airspace violation this past weekend. It's always so much fun waking up at dawn with your dog going psycho and waking up your baby. It really is funny to watch once you shake off that confusion that comes from being woken up like that. Sam thinks Cleo is hilarious. You can see him here with his stuffed dog that he sleeps with every night. We call him Doggy Bear because I kept calling him Teddy Bear, only he's a dog, so it turned into Doggy Bear. Sam bites his ears.

Sam has another ear infection, just his right ear this time. It doesn't really seem to be bothering him, but it was causing a little fever. It's nice that we can use drops instead of giving him oral antibiotics, but it would be even nicer if he didn't get ear infections at all.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

What's new with Sam?



We are having so much fun with Sam. He's starting to laugh more and he just has so much fun playing. He's into everything! He's such a handful. He goes non-stop from the minute he wakes up and it's very obvious when he needs a nap!



We went to a grocery store called Sprouts last weekend. They sell locally grown produce. They had some really pretty berries. We got some blueberries and raspberries which Sam got to try for the first time. He ate a bunch of them, but starting feeding them to Cleo towards the end. He wasn't interested in eating them the next day until he saw us eating with chopsticks (I grabbed some sushi at the grocery store that night). I started feeding Sam with the chopsticks, and he thought that was super funny, so he ate everything!



Sam started turning everything in the house into a walker, so we got his walker back down from the top of the closet. We figured he's gotten plenty of practice walking without it now, so let him have fun playing with it.



Chris went for his MRI last Thursday. He had to lay there for an hour just to have his shoulder scanned. He went to his first physical therapy session last Monday. They measured his range of motion and said it was totally normal. He'll be going back to the orthopedist on Thursday, so we'll see what he says, but Chris doesn't think he'll need surgery.



Chris fixed the espresso machine this weekend, so I think we had three shots on Sunday. Sam likes all the noises and especially likes playing with the steaming pitcher. And, yes, his hair is getting rather long ...



Sam started throwing a ball the other day. I think he used to throw the ball when he was around 10 or 11 months, but he stopped doing it for a while. He's done it again for a few days now, so that's a fun game. Another favorite is his yellow single megablock. It's like a big Lego. Every time he comes across one he brings it to us, hand held high over his head, like it's the best toy in the world.



We went to Bethany Lakes Park in Allen on Sunday. It had been a beautiful weekend and I don't think it rained at all on Sunday. The park had a play area, but the slides were too hot and Sam still isn't interested in the swings. The park has three small "lakes", but I'd call them ponds. One of them is stocked with trout. We saw lots of ducks, geese, turtles, egrets, cranes, etc. We even saw one mamma duck with her "babies." I thought that Sam would be interested in playing in the grass, but he was more interested in the water and the puddles. He doesn't get much practice walking in grass, so he walks funny when he's on it. The park also had a beautiful grass amphitheater. It had a good slope to it, so Sam didn't even want to attempt walking on it.



Here's a cute closeup of our little drooler.



So you can guess from the drool that Sam is still teething. He had a fever on Saturday and barely slept Sunday night. He actually ended up in our bed that night. He started feeling better by Monday so we're catching up on sleep now.



Sam has learned the sign for "bath." One night at dinner he signed "all done" and then "bath" and reached out for me to get him out of his high chair -- how cute! Now when he's running around playing, if we can get him to look at us, we sign "bath" when it's bathtime and he goes straight to the bathroom. He's also started chewing on his toothbrush after we get through brushing his teeth. I imagine it feels good since he still has those mean old molars coming in.



Sam loves books. He goes to his book cupboard and pulls them all out in a big pile. Then he sits in the middle of them and flips through the pages. His favorites are still activity books, like lift-the-flap, magic window, or books with sounds. He brings us books all day long to read to him. My favorite is still E-I-E-I-O.



Sam is starting to try to learn to drink from a cup. It started with playing with the cups in the bathtub. Now he reaches for our cups at dinner. So, I started giving him a cup with just enough water for two sips so he could practice. He has a lot of fun doing that. Tonight I decided to put a little of his yogurt smoothie in his cup (with no lid), since he was doing so well with the water. This went fine until he was done. And what does Sam do when he's done with dinner? That's right, he throws it on the floor. We have wood floors so it's not so hard to clean that up, but I wasn't thrilled when I realized some had splashed up on the curtains in the living room. Nice. I didn't realize he could throw that far!



And once last shot of Sam getting into mischief.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Dislocated Shoulder

As Emily's post below indicates, we've had a lot of rain in the DFW area, so if you've got a pool like we do, you try to get in it when the opportunity presents itself. Emily and I took Sam into the pool around 5 PM on Independence Day. The sun was out and we were going to play with Sam in the pool for about 30 minutes and then go inside for dinner with Stanley.

I had Sam on a pool float with me on the shallow end of the pool. We had been on it for a few minutes and Emily and I decided that we need to call it a day and go in. I was holding Sam and started to slip off of the float. Not wanting Sam to go under, I held him out with my left arm as far as I could to keep him above water. I knew the bottom of the pool was within reach of my right arm so I extended my right arm as far as I could to push back out of the water. That's when it happened.

Below is what a normal shoulder looks like:


Here's what a dislocated shoulder looks like:


As you might suspect, the red arrows point to the separation, and the source of the severe pain that comes with the separation. This happened to my right shoulder, not the left as pictured above. My x-rays show about the same result.

Thankfully, Sam was only surprised about the whole fall and Emily quickly took him. We were also lucky that Stanley was visiting with us and took me to the emergency room in Allen. There we spent the next three hours getting x-rays, waiting, and ultimately having my shoulder relocated by the staff and painkillers. What a way to spend the holiday!

I was sore for the next few days and I have a follow up appointment with an orthopaedist tomorrow. I expect that physical therapy will be in my future, but hopefully no permanent damage.

Enough with the Rain Already!



My dad came to visit last week. As always, we had great food and fun. We were really glad he was here for our 4th of July "excitement" (I'll let Chris tell you about that one himself).

Well, I don't know if you've heard, but it's rained almost every day for three months in Dallas. There's been lots of flooding, but nothing that has affected us personally. I'm just getting a little sick of the rain. On one hand it's been good because we had a drought last summer, but come on ... every day?!?!? We have a swimming pool for Pete's sake! This time last year it was 113 degrees and our pool was 96 degrees. This year it's in the mid 80s and the pool is only 81 degrees. I'd like to propose that we get a summer somewhere in the middle of those two extremes! But another benefit of rain is that our herbs are really growing. We have rosemary, sage, thyme, basil, oregano, and mint. I think our roses might be dying though. Do roses not like this much water?





When we were in Mississippi a few weeks ago, we went to Brown's art gallery and bought some Walter Anderson's prints. We had them painted, so we just now got them in the mail.



They're pretty large, so Chris had to stitch the Possum Family shot.




Update on Sam's Ears:

So we had our follow up to Sam's ear tube surgery scheduled for Friday, June 29th. On Thursday, the day before, we picked him up from day care and he had a fever and a runny nose. Ok, no big deal, he's getting a little cold, right? When we woke up Friday morning he had blood coming out of his left ear. Great! We went to the ENT as planned and it turns out he had a double ear infection. You might be thinking: "How does he get an ear infection with tubes?" Well, the tubes don't really prevent ear infections they just make them easier to treat. Both of his tubes had gotten plugged up, but the left one had obviously worked the plug out overnight. We had to take him in another room so the doctor could unplug and suction his ears. Needless to say, he didn't like that one bit. He felt better immediately though. So we had to put antibiotic/steroid drops in his ears for a week and schedule a follow up in one week. Unfortunately his fever didn't go away over the weekend and his nose was running like crazy, so I took him to his pediatrician on Monday. They did a strep test (throat swab) and a CBC (finger stick) to make sure that it was just a virus. It was, so we just kept giving him Benedryl and Ibuprofen. He was feeling better by Wednesday. I kept him home from day care until Thursday. Friday was the second follow up with the ENT. Sam's ears looked good so we went to the audiologist for his hearing test. He wouldn't cooperate, so they couldn't complete the test. We have a follow up for a hearing test scheduled in three months. The doctor said that he should cooperate better at that age. His ears are healthy now, so we should be looking for language development. The audiologist also made custom earplugs. Sam needs to wear them for his bath every night. They aren't required for swimming, but we'll probably use them then too any way.



After Sam's ENT appointment last week, I took him to Toy's R US and we got this Sand and Water table. He hasn't gotten to play with hit too much because of the rain, but he seems to like it ok. He'd still rather be playing in the pool.



Here's a little video of him splashing around.



What's new with Sam? Well, he's tall enough to reach the door knobs now. And he understands that you turn the door knob to open the door, but he's not quite tall enough to turn the knob yet, and that doesn't stop him from trying. Time for more baby proofing! We also taught him how to use the light switch, though he can only reach them when we are holding him. Sam is starting to babble more. We are starting to hear more consonant sounds like g's and m's. He tries to say Cleo, but it comes out more like E-O or E-Ah. He's starting to give more hugs, and he even tried to kiss me this morning after he saw Chris kiss me (how cute!). He doesn't sit still for a minute. He's constantly moving and exploring. He hates to sit in the carts at the stores now. He wants to either be carried or be pushing the cart. He's also started throwing some pretty good tantrums. I mean lying on the floor, face down, arms and legs straight out, tantrums. We usually get those when we tell him "No" about something (like playing in the trash or his diaper pail) -- mean parents! He gets frustrated when his little body won't do what he wants it to, like climbing on the couch. Speaking of climbing on the couch -- our couch is an L-shaped sectional that is out in the middle of the room, i.e. not against the wall. The bad news for us is that once we put Sam on the couch now, he keeps on climbing up the back of the sofa. No good! This makes me nervous, to put it mildly, because we have wood floors, though I'm not sure how much carpet would make me feel better here. We're only a few weeks away from Sam being able to climb up on the couch by himself, so I'm seeing a big battle ahead!



As a side note, we haven't been able to take as many pictures of Sam lately (not that he isn't still the most photographed child in history). Besides that fact that he really hasn't been in the mood since he hasn't felt all that great, when he sees the camera he walks towards it. And that results in lots of out of focus pictures (and tears when I won't give him the camera)! See what I mean (above)!