All by himself...

Just look at those little toes holding on for dear life. This trick (standing on his own) usually elicits clapping from me or his brothers, so now he will proudly clap for himself anytime he realizes he is working without a net. And have I mentioned the boy can climb? And eat? He is packing away the food these days. We call him our little garbage disposal. He lets you know when he is hungry, so mealtime usually starts with me putting a bunch of food on his tray, then fixing food for his brothers. Before I realize it, I look over at an empty tray and a baby frantically making the more sign. A couple of times I have checked to see if he has dropped it all on the floor. I wish he was drinking from a sippy as well. He will take a drink, but generally spits it back out. I guess time will tell. It's been a rough week, I had a sinusy headache all last week and things just spiraled out of control and I feel hopelessly behind. We have all been fishing laundry out the basket (it is clean, just not folded) for days now and I am literally kneed deep in making the winter to summer clothing switch for all of the boys. What was difficult for 2 seems mind boggling for 3 and it's hard to make headway when you are locked out of your workspace (their bedrooms) during your most productive time (after bed). I can't even get through the basic stuff like this and I feel like there is no hope of working on my other projects like writing and email for the heart walk, making our 2008 photo book and a montage of all our video clips. I feel like I have about a million things started and just sitting in limbo. I keep saying, when Ryan is 1, things will get better. It's also been raining alot as it tends to do in spring. I look forward to watching Kyle play soccer and baseball on the weekends, but instead I have been dealing with his heartbreak at not being able to play because of the wet fields. Ok, enough already. I have much to be grateful for and I know that. I have tried to do something fun with the boys at least once a day. Kyle and I made slim yesterday and the we went for a walk to splash in the puddles (and boy did they splash, I wanted them to rinse off when we got home even though it wasn't bath night, so Grant tried out the shower where he basically just stood shaking his little booty saying "I'm washing my butt, I'm washing my butt") Maybe we'll go skating or bowling this weekend, anything to get out of the house.

Given how things are going, I am not taking all 3 boys AND my niece to the mall to get their picture taken tomorrow. I love my mom and all and she loves pictures of all her grandkids together, but that would just not be worth it, especially given that I am volunteering at the school fundraiser in the morning and Grant has his first Spring Sing program tomorrow night. I am not putting off work that I should be doing right now, because today and every day are so unproductive during daylight. I am much more responsible then that.

Grant Saves The Day

Have I mentioned that Ryan is a climber extraordinaire?  You think I would have learned by now, but obviously not.  Ryan was on my lap in the living room and seemed pretty tired.  He wanted down so I let him, thinking he was crawling over to the kitchen to remove all of my Tupperware from the cupboards or take all of the magnet letters off of the fridge.  As I got distracted talking to Jason/watching TV, I hear Grant saying calmly, "hey it's an emergency, Baby Ryan is going to fall".  I get up to find he has taken a left at the kitchen and headed all the way down the hallway to the boys room and is very near the top of the ladder.  This is deja vu, I know I have typed this before, but it was very cute the way Grant explained the situation.  We thanked him and he was so proud and kept saying "it was an emergency, Baby Ryan climbed way up high and you and daddy came to the emergency and Kyle to... YOU'RE WELCOMED!".  Did he mention it was an emergency?  The pictures I took after the fact when I was a mere 1 foot away.  Ryan is all about waving now, as soon as we go outside in the morning to take Kyle to the bus, he starts in on the waving.

My Guys In Ties

I was so proud of my guys on Easter, I thought they all looked so cute in their ties. Much to Kyle's surprise and delight, the Easter bunny (aka Grandma) came while we were at church this year. I think he was convinced that "mom and dad" are the Easter bunny (doesn't take long for those kindergartners to get to talking), so when we proposed setting out the basket before church, he was like "ok, whatever" but his eyes got big when he saw the carrots scattered in the hallway and the full basket by the door. Going to church early also a made for a more enjoyable egg hunt, not having to worry about rushing off to a crowded church (oh and there is also that true meaning of Easter, first things first thing as well). We also did a sleep over at Aunt Ashlie's on Friday while Uncle Anthony was out of town again this year. Last year, Grant didn't really seem to notice, but this year he kept saying "We need to go home".

Ryan is busy as ever, waving bye-bye for the first time on Saturday. He is also using two other signs, "more" and "all done" although I think I have him kind of screwed up on "more". Since puffs are the easiest thing to throw onto his tray and his favorite, he gets lots of those and I think he now associates the more sign with what else but puffs. He was signing more while I was trying to feed him some other type of food and when I didn't respond with puffs, he just started clapping his hands harder and harder. His all done is cute as well, he puts his hands all the way over his head as if to signal a touch down. On his PAT evaluation, he was off the chart in every area except for communication, so we will try to keep working on the signs. His gross motor skills are obviously up to par as he can climb straight up the bunk bed ladder. Both Jason and I have made the mistake of leaving the room while he was innocently cruising around the train table only to come back and find him on the 2nd or 3rd step. He can also stand for stand for a good 10 seconds or so before he realizes that he is standing.

I think my poor Grant suffers a little every day from lack of sleep. A friedn just posted about her just turned 4 year old being the same way. If he falls asleep during the day, he is horrible to wake up, then stays awake until midnight, but if he doesn't sleep, he is an angry little troll until he goes to sleep with Kyle around 9. Yesterday, he called Jason a big green drag and said "I'm out of here" (partial explanation, Jason was wearing a green sweatshirt and in one of the cartoons he watches online, a "bad" dog calls Clifford a big red drag).

My Not Me's: I didn't in the span of 15 minutes open my IRA statement to reveal that I now have less then I rolled over 6 years ago after leaving Black and Veatch which had at one point doubled AND open the dryer to find I had washed and dried my cell phone. I also didn't just spend 30 minutes I could have been sleeping looking at phones online only to figure out I couldn't order online.

I also didn't microwave some m&ms, goldfish grahmm crackers and a marshmellow peep (all stolen from the kids easter candy) in a weird and unsuccesful attempt to recreate my favorite dessert, a smore.

Cardiology Checkup

Ryan had a check up with Dr. D, his cardiologist on Thursday of last week.  Everything looked great!  He had an ECG and an echocardiogram and held reasonably still for both.  I was really worried about him holding still for the echo, but he was mesmerized by the light up spinning toys they had in the echo room and only got fussy towards the end when he realized I was making them spin and wanted to do it himself but couldn't get his little finger on the little button.  After both tests, Dr. D came in and said everything looked great.  He said that they couldn't really visualize his branch pulmonary arteries, which is where narrowing could happen but that he wasn't worried about it.  He said he could tell us much by listening, which he did and said he heard now evidence of a problem.  If narrowing were to occur, it would occur over a series of years, so again he reiterated that he was not worried.  I believe him, but I think I will still request a copy of the echo report, just because I am curious about what is in it.  He gave us a little speech about treating Ryan like a normal kid, letting him run and play and fall down and I actually feel like I am finally at a point where I can and am doing that.  I told Dr. D that Ryan is the third of three boys and if he could look in our house at the things Ryan does/have his brothers do to him, he would not be worried about us treating him like he is fragile.  The other night he wanted in the bounce house with his brothers, so I let him and he loved it.  Kyle would bounce him up and down and he would just laugh and laugh.  When I tried to get him out, he just crawled away from me.  He wants to see him in a year, so this time next spring, when he is almost 2.

 

The picture is unrelated to the checkup, but shows his first experience with spaghetti.  He loved it, which is good, given that we eat spaghetti a minimum of once a week around here.

 

 

 

Brandi Stratman, P.E.

Stratman Consulting, LLC

Office Phone - 816.554.9826

Mobile Phone - 816.769.0034

E-mail - stratman923@earthlink.net

 

 

random

I am starting to feel the bitter part of the bitter sweet end to nursing.  I guess it was just so unexpected, I nursed the older boys well into the 12 month and had to really work at weaning.  I never thought Ryan would just stop, on his own 2 months shy of his first birthday and leave me feeling so, I don't know, rejected I guess.  But I guess nothing with Ryan has ever really gone as expected.  It amazes me how different he can be.  Kyle and Grant were typical into everything babies, but they never went for the toilet.  Ryan on the other hand makes a bee line that way any time I turn my back.  I am trying to look at not nursing in a positive light and realize it gives Jason a chance to feed him bottles, something that I think he enjoyed for the first 3 months only to have snatched away when we got the go ahead to ditch the fortified breast milk.  It's hard though, I would give anything for one more night to cuddle up with him in my room.  The picture is not me looking my best, but I love the light on Ryan's little face.  The other two are very random.  One is Jason's orchid which bloomed this week.  We picked it out for his birthday, last year, meaning that it has taken about 56 weeks to bloom.  I personally would have given up around 20, but not Jason, he kept tending to what to me seemed and empty pot with some sticks sticking up and look at the result.  The other is a picture Kyle drew after Pipa Smith and Grandma Deb took him to a motorcycle race in St. Louis a couple of weekends ago.  To say my dad and step mom are not picture taking type people is an understatement and this is the only record of what I think was a great trip.  They went to the rode the metro link to the race, ate at Cracker Barrel twice and went to the top of the arch.  He has just gotten so independent, I don't think he had any problems on the overnight trip at all.  I guess that makes 2 of my boys that are growing up too fast.

CHD Families Picnic

In addition to playing in the late March snow, we went to the CHD Families picnic on Sunday. I kind of didn't want to go, I thought I would feel out of place, but we ended up having a really good time. It was very casual, just a nice lunch and a bunch of kids running around. With the recent snow, they couldn't play outside which was kind of a bummer, but someone brought painting stuff and an indoor bowling set. Eventually, all of the boys seemed to be using the plastic bowling pins as light sabers. I am sure my boys had nothing to do with that. I bought a couple of things in the silent auction and we had a chance to see the Knipps from our church. The picture is of their son, Will, with Ryan. Kim made the blanket that was in the CHD Families care package, so it was a very small world story when I realized that we attend the same church. They are so nice and it was good to have some time to hang out a little with them. I think I am going to do the heart walk as well. I usually hate asking people for money and I will probably just make a large donation on my own, but I probably will send out a few emails since the director of CHD Families has worked very hard to get the funds restricted to CHD Research. The other pictures are one of the whole family before the picnic. By some miracle, we were ready a little early and I wanted a nice picture of all of us. But as you can see, Grant thought that was a little to much to ask. The other picture shows how he quickly redeemed himself by holding Ryan's hand in the car. He always does that now and it is pretty darn cute.