Kyle's Turn

After enduring Grant's preschool program, it was Kyle's turn as his school marked the end of the year with a Kindergarten recognition ceremony last Friday. In the group pic, you can see him in the back row, waving. I don't think he was actually waving at me, his baseball coach was also in the audience and seeing him is much more exciting then seeing me. It was of course very cute and Grant and Ryan did well, even though it was nap time for Ryan. Grant found his buddy Garrett and they both watched from the aisle and were very patient considering the announced all of the kids and allowed time for pics of each one. I think Grant just likes any opportunity to go to Kyle's school, "Popcorn Hill" as he calls it (instead of the more widely used Hawthorne Hill). The other pic is of Ryan with Stacy, the nurse practioner from CV surgery that kept us updated during his surgery and took care of him in the PICU. I am pretty sure I have blogged about her before, she has twins in kindergarten and her daughter, Gabby, is in Kyle's class. It is always great to see her and show her how well Ryan is doing. It seems unbelievable that when kindergarten started, Ryan had just came off oxygen, still had the paralyzed diaphragm, taking lasix and electrolyte supplements twice a day and was drinking fortified breast milk from a bottle every three hours. Now as the school year comes to a close, he is walking (yes, we have all witnessed it here at the house so we are calling it good) eating everything in site and getting into his share of trouble. Earlier tonight he was banging his toy hammer on the fireplace and before I could even say anything, Grant was telling him "Ok, if you do that one more time, I will have to take it away" followed immediately with, "so sad, we will have to put this up".

Uh Oh

We are thinking we can mark "first word" off of Ryan's milestone checklist. There is some debate as to whether "uh oh" counts as a word, but he is using it pretty frequently, like a little baby mantra, that I think we will give him the benefit of the doubt. My mom and Kyle said that he walked several steps at Grandma's, but I am for sure not counting that because his first steps should be towards me :). Kyle desperatly wanted him to repeat his trick at home tonight, but he was tired and just went back to crawling, so it will probably be soon. Kyle and I have been doing our share of walking, trying to do a mile every night. We are trying to walk a total of 100 by the end of the summer. I really hope we keep doing it, we are at 7.5 I think. It feels really good to get out of the house a little and you just never know what he will say towards the end of the loop. So far he has wanted to go every single night.

The other pics are of his new passion, baseball. He is playing coach's pitch this year and doing so well. I was afraid he would get discouraged and upset, but he has really kept his emotions in check and had some great games and not gotten discouraged when he doesn't hit right away. Everyone asks me if we work with him at home, which we do a little, but not nearly as much as I wish we could. He had quite the cheering section last Saturday as everyone picked that game to come out and see, there was me and mom of course, along with Ashlie, Anthony and Lilly, my dad and step mom and my aunt and uncle with two of my cousins kid. The other pic is of him "scoring" (they don't really keep score), the coach is in the way a little, but you can see his intense expression if you look closely.

Not Me's: I did not yell one notch below the top of my lungs for the kids to stop whining about not getting ice cream. I am so much more patient then that. I also did not find food that was so old I couldn't make out what it was under the high chair cover. After 3 kids, I know to check under there on a regular basis and I am not actually looking forward to cleaning out the basement this weekend while the oldest 2 are at the farm with my mom. If I had a free weekend, I would do something much more exciting and besides the basement is not overflowing with 9 years worth of junk that we need to get organized before it is condemened.

Spring Sing and Mother's Day

Though it was over a week ago, I can't not blog about Grant's first Spring Sing. That's him, front row, green vest, cheesy grin. It was, of course, just too cute for words. I was a little worried, given that, because his August birthday allowed him to start preschool what amounts to a year early, he was the youngest kid up there and I didn't know how he would do in a big group with so many people watching, but once we got there he did great, singing and making the motions right along with the other kiddos. Getting there was another story as I accidentally referred to the place we were going as church, which it is technically, but the word church set off all kinds of protest. Jason saved the day by convincing him that is was not a church, but merely a "pointy building". My oldest had a little troubled ceding the spotlight to his younger sibling, but I think he enjoyed it in the end. He wanted to go up front and sing at first, but once the program started I think he realized his place was in the audience supporting Grant and helping to keep cousin Lilly and Ryan out of trouble. It's a good thing I enjoy these things because this is our 3rd of 7 (2 for Kyle, 3 for Grant, then 2 for Ryan). I further complicated the matter by trying group pictures earlier with the 3 boys and Lilly (a traditional Mother's Day present for Grandma) and all I can really say about that is that I survived and we have one picture where no one obviously crying and everyone is for the most part looking at the camera. I don't know why we tried to keep it a surprise, Grant of course spilled the beans as soon as he saw Grandma and Andy did as well.

Today was Mother's Day and I think I am finally learning to adjust my expectations a little and I don't mean that in a bad, negative way like "my family isn't capable of providing me with a great Mother's Day experience", (that is completly not true, they do more then enough) but more of "I can't expect anything that happens on or because of a given day to make me perfectly happy". Now, if I were MckMamma, I would say something very spiritual and insightful and inspiring at this point, but I am what I am and I guess my point is that I had a wonderful Mother's Day. I guess like St. Pat's at Rolla, it was the best ever. And of course I can't forget and will never forget that there are mothers in the hospital with their babies and kids and that these mother's spent the day not getting to hold their kids and eat the toast they fixed for breakfast and dress them up for church and take their pictures by the flowers the kids have picked out and planted for them and that these moms would gladly wash a hundred loads of laundry and do 100 sinks of dishes just for even one of those things. Kyle's initial plan involved taking me to DQ with the free coupons he got in the walk-a-thon because "it wouldn't cost him a dime", but to his relief that changed when they planted flowers at school. He brought them home on Friday and we checked today and they had sprouted, on Mother's Day, which was neat. Grant went with Jason to pick out some annuals at the nursery (our traditional mother's day present which I love) and they planted them together. We all 5 went to church which we don't often do because of Ryan's nap and we now remember why, he got so tired and I always feel so bad for him, but I enjoyed being there together and we survived and Ryan got to sleep all the way down to my Uncle's farm where we enjoyed lunch with my family and the boys,especially Grant, loved to see all of the baby animals, which I will have to blog about when I load the pictures from my sister who remembered her camera.

Not Me's: I did not have to take Kyle to school 3 times last week because I couldn't get my act together to get up and get him feed and dressed on time for the bus. I mean, only once the entire rest of the year has this happened and I know that the last month of school is just as important and I am still religiously adhering to the routine that has been in place since fall.