Jedi in Training

I won't be surprised if Ryan's first words are "Star Wars" since it is pretty much all Star Wars all the time around here. Kyle got an "Ultimate Guide" book for Christmas and has devoured it. He was a little disappointed that the book indicated Jedi's were selected and began training when they were babies. Up until then, I think he really thought we would run into a Jedi at some point and he would be "chosen". In addition to practicing his light saber skills, Ryan is busy trying to stand up everywhere. That's all he wants to do, most kids put the balls into the Rock and Roar dino, Ryan grabs the top and stands up. His appetite is slowly improving I think, he is eating almost a jar at most feedings. I am a little worried about Kyle's eating, he has recently stopped eating candy, cookies, ice cream and Sprite and is constantly asking if things are healthy. We took a trip to Kaleidoscope this past weekend with Mom, Ashlie, Lilly and Grant and he didn't even want ice cream. While a little of this would be good, I am worried he has gone to far. I have tried so hard to not make food an issue. All I can think to do is continue down that path. I am happy that I have a new pediatrician now because if he seems to be getting more extreme, I would feel comfortable bringing it up with her. At least Grant is still a somewhat normal kid. I got whole grain pop tarts at the store the other day and he literally picked up the box and kissed it. Ok, maybe that is not exactly normal. Even though Kyle was a party pooper on the ice cream, the trip was fun, he is now the perfect age for Kaleidoscope and it is fun to watch him create. I love that he thinks he can draw anything, he has no qualms and if truth be told he draws much better then I can. Grant and Lilly are still to young for the main idea of Kaleidscope, but they enjoyed running around.

and Feeding Himself To

In addition to standing, Ryan started eating those Gerber cereal puffs and boy oh boy does he like those. I think he would be fine with only those, but he does continue to do fairly well with his baby food and we are down to basically 3 times a day nursing if you count the several hours he nurses on and off in the wee hours of the morning as one feeding.

It was CHD Awareness week and I feel like a slaker a little, lots of my "virtual" CHD friends posted and participated in other activities. I did ask the gym teacher at Kyle's school who is coordinating a fund raiser for the AHA if he would request the funds be directed towards CHD research, since only about 1% of AHA money is. He said he couldn't for this year, but would look into it for next, which is exciting. I will for sure remind him. I just think if you are going to have kids raising money, it makes since that it should benefit other kids, there is actually a little boy in Kyle's class who had is a CHD survivor. I also made two blankets today, each with fabric the boys picked out. I don't know if Grant will part with his or not, he doesn't really understand the concept, but Kyle does and he is excited, he helped me sew a little, I wish I would have had more patience to let him help more. I just forgot how hard it is to cut two big pieces of fabric to be the same size and the flannel was kind of hard to work with. I got a new sewing machine (or gachine as Grant would say) for Christmas from the boys and Jason and while we were sewing, Kyle said "I thought that was an automatic machine, why do you still have to put the fabric in it". I guess he thought you just punch in blanket and it would pop out. He had a whole list of things he wanted "sewn", like a magician's hat, a fireman puppet, etc. He was pretty disappointed that I can really only sew in a straight line. The new machine is very nice though. In addition to helping with the gachine, Grant also spent the weekend going around saying "Squidward, I found you". Kyle explained eventually that Squidward is a Sponge Bob character but he had no idea what he was talking about other then that. Lots of things I didn't do over the past week, including:

* I didn't eat any of my kid's valentine candy, especially not the good stuff. I could probably just say I never eat any of their candy from any holidays, since it is their candy after all.

* I didn't load all three kids into the van to run to Sam's and to pick up some more fabric for heart blankets only to be rear ended just before the exit. If that had happened, I wouldn't have called my mom to see what to do. I am 34 after all. I also wouldn't have told the officer that yes, I did want an ambulance because Ryan was screaming and I wouldn't have added for no reason at all that he had had heart surgery. I would have known that he was just scared like his brother, crying big tears and saying "we need to go to the hospital, Baby Ryan is hurt". I know he is a normal baby with a healed heart and I don't need to keep mentioning it to people. I wouldn't have felt bad for the guy who had driven 1.5 hours to go shopping at the mall only to rear end me and ruin his shopping trip and I wouldn't have continued to Sam's knowing that if I didn't, I was going to have to come up with something for dinner besides one of their premade meals. Most importantly, I would have be glad that everyone was really ok after all, just a little shaken up.

* I did not try to explain the process of writing down all of these things I didn't do to my husband. He would just stand there and look confused and say, "but there are still Christmas window clings on the back door" and even if he did get it, he would think it was weird.

Look Who's Standing

Ryan will be 8 months old tomorrow and since this blog may end up serving as his de facto baby book, I thought I would post both the pics and the fact that he is now pulling himself up to a standing position. The attached pic was taken a few days ago and he had pulled himself to his knees and I helped him the rest of the way, but tonight, I was getting ready to put him in the bathtub with Grant and had sat him on a towel by the sink. I was apparently not moving fast enough for him because when I turned around he had reached the step stool and pulled himself all the way up. He is a healthy sized baby, but he looked so small standing there, so determined to get into that tub with his brother as fast as he could. After bathtime, he repeated the trick at the train table to get his first up close look at Thomas. Speaking of Thomas, during the bath, Grant had asked me to draw a picture of a train with the bathtub crayons. When I asked if what I drew looked like Thomas, he replied "not really". So honest. Ryan has also been able to push up into a sitting position from his tummy when he is crawling. The older boys were never big into crawling, so this is all very exciting for me to watch.

We have had a good week so far with the nice weather and my low work load have been at the park every day. Ryan even crawls into the big tunnels and the boys play peek a boo and he laughs like there is no tomorrow. I remember the nice days last fall, we would just get outside and it was time to go back in and feed Ryan. This time next year he will actually be able to run around and play.

Welcome Baby McDonald!

Just wanted to note that my friend Karen had here little girl, Kiera Elizabeth, last Thursday. She weighed 9 lbs 4 oz, even more then Kyle and Karen had no epidural! I really don't even have words to express how impressed I am. She will make a great mom and I am so glad to have her in the club. Karen lives in Houston, but was in KC to visit her family the weekend before Ryan's surgery and she graciously came to the hospital to sit with me for awhile on Sunday, the day before Ryan's surgery. It was then that she told me she was pregnant. They had been trying for some time, so it was such great news, a much needed bright spot in that dark day. I can't believe enough time has past that the baby is now here. I saw the nurse practioner that took care of him in the PICU at the school carnival. I see her every once in awhile at school, her daughter is in Kyle's class, and I always feel so nervous. I'm not sure why, I guess I just feel humbled and grateful and I want her to think I am a good mother and doing everything right. It was a good weekend for Kyle, Grandma took him to the carnival while I worked a volunteer shift in the bounce house (just doesn't get more fun the herding kids in and out of a noisy inflatable in a packed gym). Grandma let him pick out a skateboard with his tickets, yes a skateboard for a 6 year old. He had a banner day at skating lessons on Saturday, he learned to skate backwards AND won the limbo. It was a rare moment of joy for him, he is so often obsessed with some unachievable level of perfection. Grant had fun at the carnival as well, scaling the wall in the obstacle course right along kids 2-3X his age. Right now he is curled up in my office chair sleeping, he has been having so much trouble falling asleep in his bed and I have just stopped fighting it, I am generally right here after I put them to bed either working or doing house computer related stuff. Nothing like the path of least resistance method of parenting, especially with Jason working so much. I am certainly not going to begrudge his job in this economy and I am truly grateful that he is working, but I miss him and I feel like I get nothing done. There are many things I want to do, finish blankets for CHD Families, work with Kyle on reading, help him learn his magic tricks and do the science experiments he love, organize our video clips into a dvd, the list goes on and on, but I just can't seem to get to any of it and I am not even working that much. He worked basically all weekend on top of the 10-12 hours per day he puts in during the week. His work ethic is amazing to me. I am just so tired and I wish he had more of himself to give the boys, they need a break from their cranky mother. He also has a trip scheduled in March and I was just asked about attending a kick off meeting for a project of my own which I will now have to pass on. I keep saying it wasn't meant to be and I am sure things will work out, but it is disappointing.

• I don't still have Merry Christmas window clings on my back door, it is February after all.
• My 3 year old doesn't now call you in to get him situated on the potty then declare "I need you to get me a book then get out and shut the door".
• I didn't let my 6 year old wear a grey shirt with silver track pants because I am again behind on laundry and his "there is nothing else clean" argument was surprisingly valid. I wish he would wear jeans, he looks so cute but hates them.
• I am grateful for my mom, the worlds most active and amazing grandmother. I don't know many grandma's that take their grandkids to the park and actually play on the eqipment with them. I hope I can be half as integral to my grandkids lives as she is with my kids. Since I started (and finished) the process much later then she did, I need to get back on the wagon, lose some weight and start exercising so I stay healthy.

3 Stratman's In a Tub

Kyle has been taking showers on his own for some time now, but he couldn't resist a dip in the big tub.  Since Jason was out of town, I decided to multitask and throw Ryan in as well.  He loves anything his brothers are doing, so he was all smiles.  Kyle even asked for something to "scrub him with".  Now I just need to teach him to handle diapers and feeding and I will be home free.  It was a long week for Grant, Jason was back in town by Thursday with tickets to Sesame Street Live.  We knew he would like it once he got there, but getting there was another story as it usually is with Grant (I don't want to see that singing, dancing show, it's scary to me and it makes me cranky).  You can see how excited he was in the other picture.  They did end up having a really good time though and it was nice for Jason to have some time with them.  Things went south not long after they got home when Grant woke up with a stomach bug of some sort.  It was one of those days when everything just stopped and the world revolved around getting him to drink enough to stay hydrated.  One of my sister's friends just lost a beautiful 4 month old baby girl to a sudden illness, so my neurosis was in overdrive, I set my watch and made him drink a shot glass of water every 15 minutes and worried while he slept if I had done enough.  Thankfully, he bounced back pretty quickly  by Friday afternoon and so far no one else has been impacted (knock on wood).  Although it was Friday, his week of woe wasn't quite over.  Our neighbor was having a birthday party at the inside swimming pool and not wanting to brave a swim suit in January, I begged Jason to take them.   Although I feel like I never leave Lee's Summit, I decided to head to Leawood for a little January clearance sale shopping and no sooner did I get there then my cell phone rings.  It was Jason, at the hospital, waiting to see if Grant needed stitches.  I wanted so bad to get there, but didn't want to drag Ryan in to the hospital only to find them already done or him not needing stitches (which turned out to be the case, I don't think I would have even taken him, but I am sure Jason didn't want to listen to me worry all week that we should have).  All's well that ends well I guess.  Our week did end well, we had a very fun super bowel party with some friends.  It was crazy with kids running around and the guys watching the games (the first football game Jason has watched all season, he has been so busy with work and our house's midlife crisis).  In the midst of everything, Grant managed to fall sound asleep in the recliner.  At least it gave Kyle and I a chance to do the seemingly hundreds of things he needed for school tomorrow (e.g. donut orders, book logs, etc).  For the book log, he was supposed to pick out his 10 favorite books.  We don't read it often, but he had to include "Walter, The Farting Dog" adding "I think this should be an award book".  Oh, the humor of a kindergartner.  And Mr. Ryan has gone from a slow inch worm crawl to a full speed army crawl in what seems like a week.  He has no fear and will come on little missions out of the living room and head straight for the the stairs.

I meant to post earlier about the CHD Families meeting I attended on Monday.  The speaker was amazing, he was a researcher at CMH, working on developing replacement heart valves.  Aside from making me feel like I had the IQ of a stone, the presentation was so interesting.  Most of it was over my head, but what I think happens is that they take a donor valve (what they use at this point) and remove the donor's cells, leaving only collagen.  They then take this structure and "seed" it with stem cells from the patient's own bone marrow.  The result is a valve that functions essentially as the patients own valve, growing instead of getting clogged with calcium.  As I said, it was amazing.  It was also neat to talk to other heart families.  Jason didn't go because he was out of town but he asked if it was hard or weird being back at the hospital.  It really wasn't.  The presentation was in an area I had never ran across (and I thought we had traveled to every corner).  I really don't have bad memories of the hospital.  It was of course a scary time. but almost everyone was so amazingly nice and the hospital was so child friendly that I have good memories of the boys coming to visit and playing on the playground and going to see the train in the vending area.  Not that I want to go back, I am quite happy to visit wearing a temporary visitor sticker as opposed to the orange parent bracelet.