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Cutest little placeholder I ever did see! (The toybox he's sitting on was recovered by me. I love that fabric!)

Sam's first time out in the snow

Jeff took Sam out in the snow this afternoon while I was out grocery shopping. He said that Sam had a fantastic time and indeed, he was begging to go out again when I arrived home with the shopping. We bundled him up and went back out again...except this time he was not so thrilled. I think we came back inside within three minutes. Maybe tomorrow?

My big helper

Sam loves to help me around the house. A few days ago, when he was whining and clinging to my legs as I tried to wash dishes, I decided to see how he'd do up next to me. He loves bubbles, water, being next to me and helping so he was in heaven! The drawback is that now he wants to be up there every time which slows the cleaning process considerably. :)

 

[caption id="attachment_414" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="That thing in his hands is a snot sucker. Great water toy!"][/caption]

A year ago today

I loved that cute little sweater but Sam quickly outgrew it. I knew he would which is why he's wearing it a full month after Christmas. We didn't know it but he was rapidly outgrowing the pacifier as well; we realized that he was using it as a habit, not from real need. By June it was gone.

Look at how long Jeff's hair is in this picture!

Thankful Thursday

Today I am grateful for my husband, who rearranged his school schedule just for me in order for me to go to my Thursday Group.



I love you, goofball.

Wordless Wednesday: Meltdown Edition

This guy!

...peed on the potty for the first time today! It's a feat that has yet to be replicated but we are so proud of him!

:( *Updated with pics!*

I finished my t shirt refashion...and Jeff says it looks like a pirate shirt. Now all I can think of when I look at it is that Seinfeld episode. My sewing machine decided it hates ruffles too; I tried to make some more a few minutes ago and it won't work. Sigh.

*Update*

Okay, here's the shirt! You decide: Pirate or Librarian. (Or a librarian masquerading as a pirate? Oooh, I think I like that!) And yes, I'm making you look at the whole outfit from the outside in.

[caption id="attachment_392" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="I love this coat and hat!"][/caption]

Lime green scarf from London.

At last, the shirt!

[caption id="attachment_395" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="A close-up of the shirt."][/caption]

Thoughts?

#25

Busy recreating a tee shirt! Pictures tomorrow!

goofing off

We were so busy doing this that we didn't notice the pizza man was standing at the screen door until he knocked!

#23

I was working in the kitchen today when I realized things seemed a litt quiet in the living room. Normally that's a sign that something naughty is going on but when I peeked in, this is what I found:



Sam was just sitting there, reading quietly to himself. He stayed that way until I'd finished all the dishes, sweet boy.

Thankful Thursday #2

Today I am thankful for:

1) Only having 2 migraines this week.

2) My Thursday Bible study group.

3) Awesome friends who keep me going.

4) Awesome family that does the same.

5) That my father's bunion surgery went well and he is feeling good!

5 secrets to being a good librarian

1) Wear comfortable shoes. Flat shoes. With rubber soles. You're going to do a lot of walking.

2) Wear jazzy jewelry. The old lady librarian is a stereotype. Librarians now are young, hip and sexy.

3) Ask "What can I do for you?" instead of "May I help you?" People seem to like this better.

4) When someone asks you where a certain book is located, don't wave in the general direction of the book. Go with the patron and pull the book off the shelf for them.

5) Wipe your friends' overdue fines on the sly. Wink, wink.

sick.

Sam is sick again. For us, the drill is routine: I see a runny nose and a slight fever and think "Here we go again." Sam's never been a normal kid as far as colds go. He has only once in his life had a cold that did not settle in his lungs. This time is no expeception; I was at the pediatrician's office this morning clutching my wheezing child and wondering if this is going to result in another trip to the ER. After a good listen to Sam's lungs, Dr. C. pronounced him officially asthmatic. She prescribed him a bigger dose of Pulmicort, extra Albuterol and children's Claritin to help dry out his secretions. We're hoping to avoid steroids this time around since they make him insane and we've already had enough of that lately.

I was very proud of Sam while we were at the office. Usually it's a struggle to keep him occupied (because of course they run perpetually 40 minutes late) but today he was as good as gold. He happily played with the balloon I made him out of a surgical glove and read books on my lap. When Dr. C. was filling me in on what we could expect in Sam's future, he pulled down her otoscope and made a thorough inspection of my ears. He was very professional about it all. Later he tried to shove his used tongue depressor in my mouth while shouting "Aaaaaahhhhhh!" at me. It was really priceless and shows how comfortable he is seeing the doctor. He should be, by now!

thoughts of spring

Today it was nearly 45 degrees outside. Even though I know that Spring is a long time in the offing, I felt hope reawaken inside me, the way I always do this time of year. Driving to a friend's house yesterday, I noticed that in spite of the rainy evening, the sky was not pitch black at 5:30 PM as it had been. It wasn't light out but there was the barest shimmer on the horizon line, a footnote of sorts, reminding me that Spring is coming, slowly but surely. This afternoon Jeff brought home a box of clementines; winter medicine, I like to think of it. And so, inch by incremental inch, the sun is coming back and with it, the warm weather.

[caption id="attachment_366" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="my amaryllis plant, last summer."][/caption]

Okay, you got me.

For those of you keeping track, you got me. I didn't blog yesterday. I simply forgot in the middle of the day and then I got home so late at night that I barely had the energy to crawl into bed, let alone try to blog. However! According to the rules of Blog 365, I'm allowed to post retroactively, so that's what I'm doing!

But why were you out so late, Linda? you are wondering right about now. Well! My friend Joanna had two free tickets to the DuPont Theater to see Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood from "Who's Line Is It Anyway?". She got them last minute from her mother, who couldn't use them because she's recently had some surgery. (Sad!) (But very nice for us!) It was a funny show, of course, and our faces hurt from laughing so much. By the end of the night we were both holding our cheeks.

The coolest part of the whole evening, though, was when Colin Mochrie (who is my favorite "Who'sLine?" comedian) needed to go out into the lobby so that he couldn't hear the audience. He needed a guest chaperone to ensure that he wasn't cheating and picked me, probably because I was on the aisle and cringing toward Joanna in an effort to remain unseen. He held out his hand to me and said "Would you come with me, miss?"  What was I going to do? Say no? Off into the lobby we went where I proceeded to have the nicest conversation with him. He said he was getting too old for this whole thing and when I remarked that it must be difficult to work nights, he mentioned that he'd just flown back from the Congo on Wednesday, so he was still adjusting. He said he had been doing work with World Vision there and that the kids really grabbed his heart. I told him about the work we'd done in Peru and said that because we'd had trouble having children, the kids in the orphanage in Huaraz really affected me too. He has only one son, as do I, and we talked about how great our kids were (of course they are!) and about how great our spouses are, too. He's been married for 21 years; I had no idea. That's a long time for someone in showbiz and it made me like him more. I told him that I'd only been married 7 yeas but that Jeff and I had known each other our entire lives. And that's when we were interrupted by an usher, telling us that Colin was needed back on stage. I felt very, very cool as I went back to my seat.

After the show, Joanna and I enjoyed some delicious chocolate cake with peanut butter icing at the North Star Grill. I felt like I was back in college for a moment, going out for a show and then enjoying some yummy food afterwards. I did NOT feel like I was in college this morning when I woke up with a headache, though. (Or maybe I did...but without having any of the fun the night before.) Lucky for me, my spouse is every bit as great as the things I say and so he woke up with Sam and got a handle on things here.

So that, dear readers, is why I did not blog yesterday. And I think that is a pretty good reason. :)

Sensory play

Today I introduced Sam to some new activities designed to jump start his occupational therapy even before his appointment. I'm not sure what I was expecting but as always, life here is an adventure! We began with a small tub full of rice. I was advised that this might cause a mess but because I am insane, I thought I could contain it. Hah! There is no containing rice and an 18 month old.





He had a fantastic time, as you can see. By the time we were done there was rice on every part of the kitchen floor. We swept and vacuumed but there are still rice grains making an appearnce. I think this is going to be a favorite activity of Sam's, if not mommy's.

After naptime we tried pudding painting in his highchair. I have no pictures of that because Sam hated it SO MUCH. I thought for sure that this would be another hit because a) he's a messy eater to start with and b) he loves pudding! I guess using it as paint and actually being allowed and encouraged to make a mess confused him. He smeared it around for a second or two and then held up his hands while making the super sad face and crying. He really, really wanted me to wipe off his hands. He wouldn't even taste the spoonsful of pudding I tried to give him. (Don't worry, they didn't go to waste!) So I guess that's an activity that he needs to work on.

The good news is that all that play seems to have worn him out. The bad news is that he spiked a fever in the middle of the day. Combined with the cough that started yesterday, I'd say he's full blown sick. Now we're just crossing our fingers that it doesn't turn into bronchiolitis. We've added Albuterol to the Pulmicort, so I guess we'll see!

My favorite picture of Josh. Ever!

Why I sometimes use the TV as a babysitter.

Sam has a lot of meltdowns. To anyone who ever met him as an infant this probably comes as no surprise. Thanks to severe reflux, he was screamy for the first seven months of his life.* Thanks to sheer cussedness, he's a screamy toddler. He has spent most of this week screaming his heart out because his cruel and unfeeling mother won't do things like let him play with the stove, carry around my best cooking tools and climb up and down stairs at will while I am not looking. Instead I make him do things like wear shoes outside, have his diaper changed and eat something other than blueberries for dinner. The horror!

I know that every child has meltdowns, especially when they're toddlers but I want you to believe me when I say that this is beyond normal. 90% of every day this week has been a mental breakdown of some sort. When the Child Watch coordinator called me to set up Sam's speech evaluation appointment (Feb 4th) she mentioned that I would need to drive him to their office for the evaluation, which is about 45 minutes north of us. I expressed my frustration at the fact that no one will come to the house (apparently they don't do that for evals which I guess I can understand) and mentioned that Sam + carseat = nothing but screaming the whole way. I explained that we can listen to about one song between our house and the Wal-Mart and even that's enough to make him scream most days. The lady on the other end of the phone was lovely and very tactful as she suggested that Sam might have some sensory issues as well. I think she's right on the money. While I don't think Sam's got full-fledged Sensory Processing Disorder, I can see that he definitely has some sensory issues that other kids just don't. That's probably the reason he loses it for every diaper change (and now you know why we're trying potty training so early.) It seems like every day brings some new challenege to my boy that he can't handle, whether it's making himself understood or suffering through a sensation that is uncomfortable to him, he clearly needs help.

And I need him to get help too because a screamy child all day makes for a very shouty, bad-tempered mother. I want to give him what he wants but so often handing him the object he's been desiring simply causes him to collapse on the floor and scream until tears are streaming down his face. He is a bright and beautiful little boy (maybe too bright) but he's never been a laid back kid. If we don't get some help now, I'm afraid he'll be completely out of control in a few years. Right now, Feb. 4th can't come fast enough for anyone in this house.



*One nice lady at our church remarks on how big Sam is every time she sees him. Then she follows that up with a wide-eyed expression and says "I don't know how you made it through his infancy. I really don't. That was horrible!" It makes me feel kind of validated.

Okay, give me one more day and I promise something coherent and semi-meaningful.

Oh so tired

I started back to work today and I am beat. Please accept my apologies and this picture to look at until tomorrow:

[caption id="attachment_347" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Yeah he is!"][/caption]

A day in the life

Today Jeff went back to school which means that Sam and I swung back into our regular routine. Regular for us means:



Golfing with a backscratcher....



FORE!



Story time in the reading corner (which is surrounded by toys.) Current favorite: Once Upon A Potty. Is potty training upon us? I don't know but we read that book 15 times today (no exaggeration) and Sam sat on the potty twice. He was kind of freaked out to have his little bumpy hanging out in space and even more freaked out when we flushed the toilet. I think he needs his own little seat. I know it's early but I'm hopeful!



Sometimes we read so much I go cross-eyed. Oh, the sacrifices I make!

Not pictured is time spent in the "fort," aka my pots and pans cabinet. We took Twilight Turtle in there and looked at all the stars and enjoyed a drink and a snack.  Also not pictured is Dinnertime Madness where Sam tipped his chair backwards, managing to pin both feet and legs underneath it in such a way that I was not at all sure he hadn't broken both legs. Luckily he's fine, not even a bruise, but we've decided that he's eating in the highchair from now on, screaming or no screaming. He'll adjust. And he won't have broken legs.

After all of that, including being up at 5:30, I'm beat!

A year ago today

Can you believe that it was only a year ago Sam was this little? We took this picture because despite the fact that he'd been crawling (up steps, even) he'd refused to sit for us. Here he is sitting for one of the first times. What really blows my mind is how high up his mattress is and that there's no crib tent over him to keep him in there. I used to be able to sneak in and cover him up in the middle of the night, something I can't do now because the sounds of the zipper has him on his feet, arms outstretched, ready to egress the crib despite being mostly asleep. Also missing in this picture are the million and one stuffed animals, five blankets and musical elephant that he likes to play with in the morning. Where did my baby go? How did he get so big so fast?

Just another Saturday here at our house

Sam is what you might call a messy eater. For dinner, we mostly strip him down so that he eats with just a diaper on because skin is so much easier to clean than shirts. I got tired of stain removal awhile back! One of the problems we have is that over the summer, Sam decided he didn't like being in his highchair while Jeff and I were seated at the table. He wanted to be there with us too. So I put away the highchair and took out the travel booster seat and put that on a kitchen chair for him. Unfortunately, because our table has a lip and our chairs are small and Sam is large, he can't bend his knees while he's sitting. They just kind of stick straight out and dangle over the edge. A little bigger and he'd be able to bend them so that at least he'd be able to rest his heels on the top rung of the chair. But as it is, his knees fall in a weird place and he winds up squirming and crying the whole meal.

While we were trying to figure all this out, I had to break out the highchair again for nebulizer treatments. (Yes, Sam is back on Pulmicort twice a day for the rest of the winter.) The highchair has a five-point harness which was useful for restraining Sam until he got used to the nebulizer again. He has a tendency to fight it with all his strength and neither Jeff nor I could hold him without being in danger of inflicting bruises. Because, you know, in addition to BIG he's also STRONG. All of this resulted in two baby chairs in my kitchen, neither of which my son would use. Aaargh!

For the past few days we've just been letting him sit at a regular chair at the table with us. We're using one with arms so he's relatively contained.  While he was a pretty neat eater while strapped into a chair, he's become very messy again in the absence of any restraints.

[caption id="attachment_328" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Exhibit A: peanut butter in the belly button."][/caption]

 This has meant a lot of baths after dinner. Tonight's bath led to this:

 

[caption id="attachment_332" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Bad to the bone!"][/caption]

 Even so, he's not too much of a toughie to pass up a snuggle with Daddy:



He was practically comatose while snuggling with Jeff. We haven't heard a sound from him since we put him down.

Freaky Friday

You all know that Jeff has spectacular luck...either it's really good or it's really bad. He's been known to win huge prizes like a computer and a flat-screen TV but once he was cuffed by the police and thrown over the hood of his car because he happened to be wearing the same color shirt and driving the same color and model car as an armed robber. We never know what's going to happen to him next but it sure is interesting living with this guy.

Today he volunteered to take a few bags of stuff to Goodwill for me while Sam napped so that I could have lunch and relax a little. He was gone a long time considering that Goodwill is only about five minutes from our house and when he came back he was shaking his head. When I asked him what the deal was, he told me the most incredible thing had happened to him. When he pulled up to Goodwill, a little old lady was in front of him, unloading a trailer, one slow item at a time. Since there was only one employee working at the time, Jeff decided to help her carry everything in to spare her both the weight of the load and the freezing cold outside. They were nearing the end of the trailer when Jeff picked up a wooden chest. As he did, he felt something slide around inside and figured that there had to be old family photographs or letters inside. He asked the old lady if she knew what was in the chest, not wanting her to donate it with its contents unkown. She replied that she had no idea what was in there because it was locked and she just liked it so much she couldn't bear to destroy it. Jeff persuaded her that she needed to know the contents of the chest and she finally allowed him to pry it open. Upon examination, the chest was full of over $30,000 in government bonds, all at least 20-30 years old. With appreciation, she had easily $100,000.00 in that chest.

Mouth agape, she told Jeff that she and her husband had been poor their whole lives and she had no idea where all these bonds came from. She offered him some as a finders fee, which he quickly turned down. He strongly advised her to go to a bank and call someone from her family. And then he made sure that she got in her car and drove off unharmed. (Our Goodwill is in kind of a shady neighborhood.)

I think my husband is a superhero on a regular basis but today he really was a superhero to a stranger. What an incredible thing to have happen on a random Friday!

Thankful Thursday: Orthodox Christmas Edition

Merry Christmas...again. If you follow the Gregorian calendar, today is Christmas. Jeff and I have a habit of observing Christmas again on this day because it seems free of the stress and hype of traditional Christmas. So this morning we gave Sam his last present (from Aunt Beth, Uncle Josh, Zeke, Deacon and Omi) and let him have another taste of the holidays. We played with his Little People nativity while I explained the Christmas story to him. I'm sure he doesn't grasp much of it yet at his age but I like our tradition. And I like how special this otherwise random day becomes when I change my focus to where it really matters.





Monster bowling!

I am not the first to think of Thankful Thursdays; I think Jess at daysgoby might actually have been the one to introduce me to the concept. Regardless, I want to make a habit of being thankful for the blessings in my life. So today I am grateful for:

A husband who loves to take our son to BK PlayPlace.

A beautiful, active little boy to love, nurture and cherish.

PBS television

broiled tomatoes stuffed with their own insides, feta cheese and basil.

the vacuum cleaner and a well body to use it.

Wordless Wednesday: Toro Edition

 

#5

Thanks everyone for your kind words about Sam's speech delay. A lot of you (commenting or lurking) have kids who recieve services of some kind. Reading about your experiences, talking to you about what the process has been for your child and seeing how much your children have been helped and had fun with it all has made me feel much more at ease with this whole thing than I think I might have been otherwise. I spoke to the good people at Child Watch today and they said that while Sam is at the earliest point he can be for speech intervention that they would submit his case to the review comittee. We should hear their decision in about two weeks. The intake person made it seem as though he would recieve services of some kind, it's just a matter of whether or not they'll send someone to our home or make us go to a clinic. Please pray that they'd send someone to our house. Hauling an 18 month old to a clinic that will most likely be 30 minutes or more away is not really optimal. Especially not my active, making-up-in-gross-motor-skills-what-he-lacks-in-verbiage child.

Jeff and I are on Day 2 of the South Beach Diet and things are pretty desperate around here. I am ready to kill someone for a piece of fresh fruit and Jeff feels that way about the half a package of sour patch kids that I hid from him. We weighed ourselves on the Wii Fit today so that we can make a graph of our progress over the month. We are nerds like that. Quantifiable data, ho!

In other news, we wear a lot of hats:



My mom made me this hat for Christmas. I know! She MAKES hats!



How adorable is this hat?! I swear, I could eat this child.



By the way, I joined the fire department. Job: reading Baby Hef his stories at night. He's holding his favorite book "Smash That Trash." Jeff and I periodically hide it because we're both so tired of reading it to him but he always finds it. Neither of us have the heart to refuse him when he comes running up to us, clutching that book. Sigh.

#4

Sam had his 18 month well child checkup today. We scored the earliest morning appointment available when I booked it three months ago and so for once, we were seen right on time with no waiting. Hallelujah! Sam is now 2'10" and 30 lbs. 8 oz, putting him in the 95th percentile for both height and weight. He is a BIG kid...and active. He was very interested in all of Dr. C's tools, otoscope especially, and as she gave me the rundown of his stats he sat there using the otoscope as phone, trying to dial in an inspection of his own ears. It was pretty cute.

Not so cute are Sam's feet. Since birth he's had cracks along the bottom of his toes, where they join to the soles of his feet. His toenails tend to split vertically and then peel off, uncomfortable for a person who wears footie pjs most nights. I also think that his big toenails would be ingrown if I didn't keep up with them religiously. We've mentioned all this to Dr. C before but we adopted a wait and see approach, hoping that as he got bigger his foot issues would resolve themselves. I've slathered his feet with Vicks and monistat, both good for fungal infections but it appears that fungus is not the case here. So, as soon as the referral goes through, we are off to see a podiatrist.

Dr. C also confirmed our suspicions that Sam is mildly delayed in the area of expressive speech. He's always been ahead in the motor skills department so we weren't worried initally, thinking that he'd eventually catch up. But for a while now his main expressive sound has been "Kkkkk!" to indicate that he finds something interesting, displeasing, scary, funny, wants something, is hungry...really he uses it for just about everything. And we understand because we are his parents. However, he only uses about four words consistently: mama, dada, no and uh-oh. We've heard him say other things, most notably this summer when he pointed to a duck in a shop and clearly said "Duck!" but those random words seem to come and go. Dr. C and I both feel that he will catch up eventually but the earlier we can help him, the less frustration he'll have when language really matters, like preschool and kindergarten. Hopefully a small amount of speech therapy now will prevent bigger, more frustrating sessions later on.

After waiting patiently through all the poking and prodding, Sam unfortunately had to endure a booster shot. Sad boy! Unlike his baby visits, he definitely recognizes the use and function of a needle; he pulled away as soon as the very nice nurse brought it into view. She was quick but he still howled and unprepared mommy forgot to have a cookie on hand this time. He was convinced that the bandaid she put on his leg was the thing that had bitten him and kept peeling it off and waving it in the air and screaming. I finally had to just hold my hand over his leg and let him cry into my shoulder for a few minutes in order to prevent him from bleeding on his new pants. He was a joy tonight thanks to that shot. /sarcasm.

In other news, it looks like my clearances finally came through and I am going back to work next week! I'll be working Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights at the library. I had originally been looking to go back to work over the summer and when it didn't pan out, I actually felt kind of glad. I like being at home with Sam and even though our budget could always use the supplementation, I felt that the sacrifice was worth it to be a SAHM. The library called me in the fall with a job offer that was tempting but would have meant putting Sam in daycare. In addition to having daycare costs consume my entire paycheck, Jeff and I both made the decision that it was better for me to be at home. (No judgement on anyone else's choice; this is just what was right for us.) I turned the library down, a little sadly, knowing in my heart that it was my last chance to work there at a job I really loved. But it wasn't! A coworker of mine became unexpectedly pregnant just as another coworker landed a full time job with the state. Evening hours were open, I had experience, and so they called me again, willing to work with my schedule. The best part is that Jeff will have Sam those evenings. So I get to work a job I love, Sam gets some male bonding time AND our budget gets a boost. Pretty nice!

#3

A year ago this is what my sweet boy looked like. I can't believe how tiny he was...and I thought he was so big then!

Now look!



So hey, I know you're all really enjoying what is rapidly becoming a year-long Sam Slideshow but does anyone have any topics you'd like me to blog about? I'm feeling a little intimidated by this whole "blog every day" thing. And this isn't really a photo blog, despite how awesome that might be.

PS~ Jeff and I start South Beach Diet tomorrow. Gulp! No sugar of any kind for two weeks to start out. Things might get a little cranky around here....

#2

This morning I went grocery shopping and that was the biggest thing to occur in our day. I love days like this, days that are plain vanilla ordinary, because for so long I thought we'd never get to experience them. Today we simply enjoyed ourselves as a family. Aaaah.



Stylin' and profilin'.



After dinner/bath smoothie time. We only do this a few times a month but Sam LOVES it. (Apologies for the small person "bumpy" in this picture but I just thought it was too cute not to share.)



Mmmmmn.



A peek at my latest project.

I have a video for you but for some reason Wordpress won't retrieve it from my computer. Sad! Maybe tomorrow?