Sunday, June 21, 2009

Father's Day, Then and Now

To say, "what a difference a year makes" sounds very cliche, but doesn't really begin to cover it. Last year on Father's Day, Ryan was obviously still in the NICU awaiting surgery. I went to the hospital early so I would be there for rounds and during shift change walked all the way to the from lobby so that I could get reception on my cell phone to call home. Kyle and I had actually shopped for presents before Ryan was born, so it was just a matter of wrapping and locating on that morning. I can still remember hearing the excitement in Kyle's voice over the phone, such a lover of all things having to do with presents. Like any other day is was a logistical challenge of who was staying and going and taking care of the boys and driving this car or that and so on. Kyle had t-ball, so my dad and step mom drove up to take him and Grant to the game so that Jason could come to the hospital. The plan was for them to go to the game, then bring the boys to the hospital to meet Ryan for the first time. The only hitch was when they couldn't figure out how to get back into our house after the game, being country dwellers, they were not to used to having a garage door opener. The first meeting between the boys and Ryan was brief, but sweet, Grant was impressed by all of "Baby Ryan's friends" and afterwards we had a memorable Father's Day dinner in the CMH cafeteria. It was nice to be together this year, the boys and I made a garden stone with their picture and Kyle was intent on getting him a "two sided" hammer (i.e sledge hammer) from Home Depot, but begrudgingly accepted one bought from Lowe's. Kyle decorated the wrapping paper and his card with the number 6, to mark Jason's 6th year of fatherhood.

Ryan is moving quickly into toddler hood. Doesn't the look on his face just say "I am so done with that high chair, Mom". He climbed up into Grant's booster after dinner the other day and was oh so proud of himself. If I don't catch him in time to do the safety belt, he has also been known to climb straight up and onto the middle of the table to reach the ultimate prize, the salt and pepper shakers. And to think I thought I had seen it all with the first two. With everything else going on, I don't think I have posted about how much and how well he is walking. Probably for the last month he has been walking more then crawling and at this point, he seldom crawls. I have taken about a million video clips because it is just to cute for words, to see him walk from place to place and room to room.

In other news, Kyle caught and "air ball" (also known as a fly ball) at his game on Saturday and also hit two triples. He has two games this week and his last is next Saturday. I will really miss it, I love watching him play.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Party Time

Not much to report on the small first birthday bash held for Ryan on Sunday.  Just your basic family dinner followed by cake.  Kyle and I did get a little creative, making the star shaped ice cream cake and using the mold to cut the brownie into a star as well.  This all inspired the all-star 1st birthday theme.  I love picking out decorations for their parties, being creative, mixing and matching to find the best deal,  including the balloons, I spent around 12 dollars.  Kyle helped me make the star confetti as well.  I know to soon they will be rolling their eyes and asking if we could just put some cash in an envelope and be done with it already so they can go hang out with their friends.  There is the typical picture of Ryan playing on the box as the toy car from Grandma and Pop languishes in the back ground, but as you can see from the other pic, once assembled it was a hit.  I am not a big fan of power wheels for babies, but this one is actually well designed, he can get in and out easily and you can control addeleration and steering with the detachable handle.  The best part of this being that Kyle and Grant can also operate the handle, freeing up Jason and I to do important stuff like sitting on the couch.  The picture of Grant was just to cute, I love this outfit on him.  I bought it even though it wasn't on sale, a rare event for me, and thought I would have to bribe him to wear it, but to my surprise, he cooperated and even went around telling everyone, "look at my new pants".

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Birthday, Barnyard, Big Truck, Baseball and Basement Cleaning

Alliteration. I can be such a MckMamma wanna be. The birthday is of course in reference to Ryan's big first birthday. What an amazing year, I've been busy and haven't slipped into the "this time last years too much", but I'm sure it is coming in the days to come. At this point, day 3, we were still in shock, trying to figure out what to do. When do we stay, when do we care for our older boys, when do the doctors round, when will they do the surgery, who are all of these people and what do they expect out of us? The list was endless and exhausting. I don't think I even started blogging until Sunday, Day 5 I think. I am planning to reread and add some reflections to my ordinal posts. One of my many projects in the works is using one of the blog to book services to print out those entries, so that Ryan can someday read about what happened during those first few months and the year that lead to Thursday, his amazing first birthday. I took Kyle and Grant to the farmstead for their very first visit on their exact first birthdays and was glad to make it a threepeat with Ryan. We had a wonderful day and I think Ryan enjoyed our short trip. Kyle is getting a little old for the farmstead, so after lunch, we were so fortunate as to happen by a Firestone grand opening that included and appearance by monster truck Big Foot. Not only did we get to see Big Foot up close and personal, but we showed up right as he was getting read to crush two old pickups, we didn't even have to wait. As he started the engine, I grabbed Ryan and ran inside thinking Grant would be ok. This proved to be wishful thinking and Mom had to carry my poor frightened little boy inside to me, I felt terrible, but he was soon feeling much better with the aid of a goody bag and piece of cake and the opportunity to watch from the window. The 3rd B for baseball has no photo documentation, but it did mark the first time all 5 of us have attended one of Kyle's games. I remember thinking last year while I was pregnant that maybe I would be pregnant at one game and then bring the baby to the next. It ended up taking a year for that to happen and I don't know if it was worth the wait as Ryan did not seem to be a fan of baseball, preferring instead to practice walking on the cement and climbing on the bleachers. I had wanted to go out to eat afterwards as we sometimes do on birthdays, but by the end of the game I just wanted to get him home where he could move unabated, that we settled on KFC drive through. This actually left us all in a better mood for present opening. Kyle and Grant had spent a good deal of time designing wrapping paper, making cards and making sure his presents were just so and they were both excited for their brothers big day. We are planning a small party tomorrow with just grand and god parents, then a big party in late July to celebrate one year home. The final B also has no associated photos for good reason as it stands for basement cleaning in preparation for our first big garage sale. The cleaning out the basement actually took place over Memorial day weekend and I really can't overstate how big of a job it was and how good it feels to have the basement back and free of all of the junk we have accumulated over the years. I enjoyed parts of the sale, like seeing little kids excited to get new toys, a grandma picking out clothes for her first grand baby and a young Hispanic family buying my old vacuum and several things for their baby on the way. Kyle also got into the sale, demoing his old toys in hopes of making a big sale. When Jason got home, his exact words were, "Dad, I made 17 dollars and I even got to talk to a Spanish guy. I think he meant Spanish speaking, but he was excited.

I did not take all three boys garage saleling today, the middle one wearing mismatched shows on the wrong feet. I also did not buy an Indiana Jones movie rated PG-13 for my 6 year old. 6 is not even 1/2 of 13 and I am a much better parent then that. If I had done that, I would have watched with him, not gone to the store for birthday cake making supplies. I am not up past midnight blogging when I still need to mop the floor and get ready to teach Children's LOTW tomorrow at church. I also did not give my baby a cupcake for snack for the express purpose of recreating his requisite first birthday cake eating pics in better light.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Hope Love Cure - Heat Walk 2009

The Heart Walk was an amazing success for Team Ryan! Thanks to our amazing family and friends, we raised $550 to support local CHD research. Our team of walkers is shown in the bottom right hand corner and includes our family, Grandma, Aunt Ashlie, Uncle Anthony, Lilly and let's not forget Dexter. The weather was great, Kyle was so disappointed that he had to leave early with Grandma for a baseball game, but he did come for the pre-walk activities. Jason and I wanted our donors to get their money's worth, so we took the long route (4 miles) with Grant and Ryan in tow. Grant did really well and walked for quite a bit. Ryan enjoyed people watching for awhile and then crashed. Every time I tried to recline his seat, he sat up and woke up, so that is why he looks so uncomfortable. I made the collage into cards on Winkflash to send to our donors. We are so grateful to:

Melanie and Tracy Miller, clients of Mom's
Wray and Jerrian Renfro, my sister's in-laws
Russ and Georgena Hayes, Jason's Aunt and Uncle
Rich and Marla Byrne, former client and friend
Toni and Bob Spradling, clients of Mom's
Grandma and Pop
Regina Ward, preschool teacher extraordinaire
Karen McDonald, my best friend from college and new mom herself
Lisa Chism, preschool mom (also of 3 boys)
Susan Guicheteau, my manager from Shaw and longtime friend
Jon Stratamn, Jason's cousin
Donna Pierce, my aunt
Stacie Hopkins, my cousin
Renee Cumpton, my cousin
Aunt Ashlie and Uncle Anthony



This is a picture of Ryan (and Grant) with his new heart friend, Natalie. Natalie was also born with TGA and had her surgery on June 24th of last year, just one day after Ryan. They were in the PICU at the exact same time, directly across the hall from each other in fact and it was so good to meet her and her family and see how well she was doing. Her parents and big sister were super cool and could not have been nicer. I noticed them with shirts that had "Natalie, TGA w/ VSDs" embroidered on the back and when I saw the baby hanging onto the stroller that looked to be around 1, I knew immediately that they were the family I remember seeing that week in the PICU. They always looked so worried, I never said anything to them at the time, but I knew somehow that Natalie was dealing with TGA as well and I always wondered how she was doing and how things turned out for them. I didn't say anything to them last year because a)I didn't know what to say b)I knew that there wasn't anything to say really and c)what with the pumping and waiting for rounds and walking to the cafeteria and pumping and pumping and pumping, none of us had much time to chat but I am so thankful said something this year. I think we could have talked for hours if we had had the chance, but unfortunately things were wrapping up, we did find some shade and Jenna and Grant enjoyed some time on the big inflatable slide with no lines and we were able to exchange info and I can now follow her story on CarePages. Meeting them was a very special end to a very special day.




Special Edition Heart Walk Not Me's: We did not let our 3 year old pee in Brush Creek during the walk using the excuse that it was full of duck poop anyways. Had we have done this, we wouldn't have used the big stroller as cover. We also did not eat at McDonald's after the Heart Walk since we listened so closely to all of the healthy living tips so closely.