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.

Little Stinker

Our little stinker has been a real handful this week! He was refusing to eat and was waking up three times a night. I'm pretty sure he was teething because he got a little better with Ibuprofen and Anbesol. Picture this: waking up to a inconsolable, screaming baby at 2:30am in the morning who is fighting you to put a q-tip in his mouth, doing the math to see if it's been 6 hours since the last dose of Ibuprofen, if so measure and fight baby to take medicine, rock baby to sleep, try to go back to sleep yourself, now repeat a couple of times a night for a few nights in a row! No surprise Chris ended up sick after a few days. He came home from work early and slept for three hours, had a little soup and Gatorade, and then we went to bed two hours early.

Of course you can't tell that anything was wrong from his pictures. He's turning into quite the little ham when the camera comes out. What I really don't understand is why it seems like Sam only has problems at night. We're going to the doctor tomorrow for his 12 month checkup, so we'll see what the doctor says.



Since Sam is over a year old and over 20 lbs, we were able to turn his car seat around last weekend. He got a big kick out of it. He kept laughing every time I'd look back at him. Of course he was asleep by the time we got to the gas station any way!



The car seat wasn't the only change we made this weekend. We dropped the bottle and the formula! That's right, big boy has a sippy cup and drinks milk. We went with the Nuby Silicone Spout after trying several other cups. All the other cups that we tried had these valve pieces to keep them from spilling which made it to hard to suck anything out of them. And if we removed the valve, we got a nice sprinkling, ok downpour, of milk every where. The Nuby is very similar to a bottle, so it seems like a good transition option. A nice bonus, is that we no longer have to mix bottles of formula to take to day care, since they provide milk for the kids at no additional cost. One other change (that I may be the only person intersted in) is that we also went from size 3 to size 4 diapers this weekend.



Here's a morning picture with Daddy in pajamas. They probably just got through making coffee, a favorite pastime of course. Sam loves the coffee making process so much that we got him a play coffee maker for his birthday. It's great! He fusses to play with the real one every morning and seems satisfied for now to pretend with his. I keep meaning to get video of it, but I'm usually trying to wake up then.



We went to Ian and Roya's for a yummy dinner Sunday night. They were dog sitting Lucky, so Sam got to play with a dog more his size. They really hit it off. Lucky made Sam giggle. Man, those cheeks are so pinchable! Sam got a big kick out of all the candles Roya had lit on the table. It was a good enough distraction to actually get him to eat a little. Sam also had fun climbing up their stairs. I tried to show him how to go back down backwards, but he couldn't quite get the hang of it.

Sam's appetite seems to have turned around in the last day or so. He actually ate Beefaroni without just chewing it up and spitting it out, so hopefully he's getting a break from whatever he was going through ... fingers crossed. We're trying to teach him some sign language to help communicate what he wants, especially at mealtime. Trying to teach him "more" is hard because he actually has to want "more" to teach "more." I think he learned "all done" the first day. There's a show on PBS called Signing Time to teach kids sign language. I had to email our local PBS to get the schedule for the show in Dallas, so check with your local station if the schedule for your area isn't listed on their web page. They don't teach the sign for "coffee" so we had to look that one up (ha!).

For our weekly motor skills report, Sam has learned how to stand up on his own. In other words, last week he would crawl over to something, pull up on it, and then take off walking. Now he can go directly to a standing position from any where. He's really walking every where and very rarely touches his walker. We can actually probably put that away now. He's also started "running errands." He'll go over to his wagon, get a block, and bring it to us. We say "thank you", he smiles or giggles, then goes over to get another block. He's started manipulating things with his hands with a lot more control. He got a set of nesting/stacking cups for his birthday. He loves to pour them out and put them back together in different combinations. He can't tell just by looking at one cup that its larger than and won't fit into another cup yet. He also got some soft blocks for his birthday, which he started stacking for the first time. He's had small hard blocks since Christmas which we would stack and he would knock over, so it's a big deal that he stacked them on his own. The blocks also have shapes that fit inside them. He loves to pull them out and try to put them back in. He can easily do the cylinder shape, but has a little trouble with the prism and box shapes.

We also want to say CONGRATULATIONS to our friends Brad, Jennifer, and Jackson on the newest addition to their family. Sofia was born on Tuesday. She was born about nine weeks early so she'll be in the NICU for a while, but she's doing great and is already breathing on her own. We can't wait to meet her!

Sam's First Birthday

I can't believe our little baby, excuse me -- BOY, is one year old. It seems like just yesterday that I held him for the first time and looked at that pretty red hair.

We actually decided to go have some professional portraits made of Sam for his first birthday. We took a few days off work for his birthday and we didn't want to spend all of our time setting up for and taking pictures. We went to Portrait Innovations. I would really recommend them for your everyday portraits. I don't think they are as good as someone like Lamb Photography though. It was a 30 minute sitting, followed by 30 minutes of picking out photos, and then 20 minutes to print them, so we had our photos that day. Here is a photo montage of some of our favorites.



Friday was Sam's first birthday!!! We went to the Heard Wildlife Sanctuary which is only a few miles from our house. There is also a nature museum there, but we only had a few hours before we were going to go pick my mom up from the airport. Sam really liked being in the backpack, which isn't surprising considering how much he loved the front carrier. It was an absolutely beautiful day! We've been getting a lot of rain lately and the temperatures have mostly been in the 70's and 80's. It's hard to believe that it was 104 degrees when we brought Sam home last year.



We opened presents from family on Friday and had chocolate cupcakes with blue frosting. Sam liked the cupcake a lot better than the cake we got for his portraits. I think the main reason he had more fun was because Cleo was there to help him out.



Saturday was Sam's birthday party. It was an Elmo themed party with red, yellow, and blue balloons and streamers.



I even made an Elmo cake.



Here's a video of Sam "blowing out his candle" and "eating his cake."



We had a great time at Sam's party. I was very glad that he didn't get scared with all the excitement around singing Happy Birthday. I think he was a little used to hearing it since I started singing it to him as soon as he woke up on Friday.



Sam and the fam.



Go to http://share.adoramapix.com/connerfamily/sam-first-birthday for more pictures of Sam's birthday party.



Here's Grandma Mary Lou helping Sam learn how to walk.



Sunday was Hagen's birthday party. It was a construction theme and Hagen had a t-shirt that said "I dig being 1." He had a blast eating meatballs and digging into his cake. He was really excited that he got a big Tonka truck to push around the house. Sam was in a really bad mood that morning so we were late to the party and we were scared that we might have to leave early. But he had a blast as soon as we got there. There was so much excitement and so many toys that there was no way he could stay in a bad mood. We were also concerned that Sam might think it was another party for him after three straight days of parties and cakes. There was a 10 month old boy there named Sam who took his first steps at the party. Our Sam must have viewed that as a challenge because he started walking -- on his own -- no walker!!!



He's been scootin' around the house ever since. I think I even caught him trying to run this evening.

Sam loved all the toys he got for his birthday, but the biggest was a tent full of stuffed animals from Ian and Roya. He loves to crawl in there and hug all of them.



Here's Sam getting a big hug from Aunt Andrea. My two favorite red heads!



This is a photo of my Mother's Day mom's-night-out with my mom's group. We had a blast and it was nice to get away for an evening. It was the first time in a long time that Chris got to feed Sam his dinner. It was definitely the first time that he had to do the whole bedtime routine on his own. He did a great job and even got to spend a quiet evening at home alone.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies. I barely missed having my first Mother's Day last year, so this year was the first. We had a very nice weekend. I "helped" Sam practice saying "mama", but I mostly got "dada" and "baba".



We went to the Dallas Farmer's Market Sunday morning. I've been wanting to go for a while, but it's in downtown Dallas, so it takes a little planning to get down there with a baby.



They had lots of fresh produce, meat, seafood, and plants -- but no green tomatoes or boiled peanuts. I was a little disappointed that the parking was actually in the middle of all the stands. There was just too much traffic, and the sidewalks were too crowded to comfortably navigate a stroller. There are a couple of smaller farmers' markets in Plano that we'll stick to, but I was glad we made the trip.



Chris took this picture of an International Harvester Farmall Cub tractor. His family had one when he was growing up.



All of the pictures and video that I'm posting today were taken with my Mother's Day present, a Canon SD800 IS. So you're probably thinking that I didn't need another camera, and that may be true. But, I WANTED another camera. I wanted a camera that I could just put in the diaper bag for every day pictures. It's kinda hard to take the DSLR and the video camera every where we go (and please don't question my slightly insane need to document everything we do). I LOVE this camera. It has an image stabilized lens, face recognition focusing, and takes great video. Plus, it's super tiny.



I actually opened my present on Saturday because Chris thought I'd enjoy playing with the camera all weekend, so I even got to take it to Home Depot. Here's Sam in the car cart. He was a little puzzled at what I was doing with a camera in Home Depot.



Here's a shot of a snotty, slobbery Sam playing with his toy.




Here's a video of Sam playing in the tupperware cabinet. He's started actually crawling into the cabinet so he can pull absolutely everything out onto the floor.



This is a video of Sam playing with a salsa bowl at a Mexican restaurant next to the farmer's market. It's just a sample of the fun games we get to play.



We're still working on walking and eating. I've seen Sam walk as far as five feet, but he'll only do it if he's walking between Chris and me. If he's walking to something, he usually takes a few steps then starts crawling.

We actually had our first meal with Sam where he was eating everything we were eating. We had pulled pork, field peas, and mac and cheese. He liked the pork, but he mostly still chews everything and spits it out. At day care they mush everything up and feed it to him. At home he throws a fit if I don't let him feed himself. So he has a tray full of finger food to play with (and feed Cleo), while I try to feed him jarred food. That's worked for a few weeks, but he's getting wise to what's going on and now he wants his own spoon. Which would be fine, except that he want to put his spoon in the jar too. Which would also be fine, except that when he gets the food on his spoon, he just slings it off -- on the floor, on me, on Cleo -- whatever -- just not in his mouth!



These are some pictures of Sam and Hagen playing from a few weeks ago. We had a lot of fun watching them play together.