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.

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".

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.

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.

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.