Cardiology Checkup

I am fully aware I have not blogged Easter and there are some very blogworthy photos/phrases (such as “Look, the Easter bunny laid a car egg”) but Ryan’s annual checkup with cardiology was today.  I took my camera, wanting a pic of him covered in EKG stickers, but he was pretty unamused with the whole process and it just didn’t seem like a Kodak moment.  We did survive, thanks to the tv’s in every exam room at CMH North.  He was as usual, captivated by Sponge Bob and held perfectly still for his echo, towards the end, he just looked at me and started saying “Mama, Mom, Momma” over and over as in what in the hell is she doing and why haven’t you picked me up yet.  He took his favorite bear-bear and held tightly the whole time.  When the echo tech tried to put a sticker on bear-bear, she found out what the look of death looks like when coming from an almost 2 year old.  After the echo, we talked to Dr. D, the cardiologist.  He was more talkative this year (last year, I just remember him saying, “he is fine, complete repair, perfect, don’t give him any special treatment”.  Today he still said he was fine, but did say he had some leakage from his aortic valve that has caused a slight enlargement of his left ventricle, but it is very mild and within the range of what a normal kids heart would look like.  Just something they will continue to watch.  He asked about speech, saying they do sometime see speech and language delays in TGA kids because of the decreased oxygenated blood flow to the brain in utereo.  Fortunately, Ryan is talking up a storm and although he was born with a small head (5% compared with 90-95% for his brothers), he caught up extremely quickly, yeah Ryan.  When we came home, he said “I unt grapes, I unt choclate milk”.  Lot’s of words for not even 2 year old.  I think that is all for the most part.  He did say he has some mild dilation of the aortic root, caused by the fact that it was originally headed to his pulmonary artery and is thinner.  This dilation means he shouldn’t be involved in weight lifting when he gets bigger.  He can do weight training, as long as he doesn’t hold his breath while he tries to lift as much weight as he can.  While this doesn’t bother me, I do worry that telling a teenager he can’t do something, will only make him want to do it more and I feel more pressure to do everything right parenting wise so that we have a good relationship at that time in his life and he will listen to us and his doctors.  At least I have probably 10-12 years before that worry is realized.  Another note related to bear-bear, he continues to have the binky only at night, now when he gets tired, he will say in this really low voice “unt bear-bear, blanket, binky”.  So cute.

Annual Spring Trip to the Zoo

I don’t know if you can call two years in a row annual, but like last year, we did trek to the zoo with mom, Lilly my friend Julie and her 3 yet again this year during spring break.  Like last year it was an amazingly beautiful day weather wise and we had a great time.  I figured Kyle would be the bellyacher, but with his new found reading skills, he had a great time reading signs and telling us random animal facts.  The downside was that since he could read signs, we couldn’t’ use the “oh, there’s nothing down that trail, just bathrooms line when we were tired and didn’t feel like making one more loop to see another set of monkeys.  I even let him man the camera (the small digital, not my big expensive one that didn’t even make it out of the house with us because if I took it somewhere with all three kids I would end up losing one of the kids because I was so worried about keeping track of the camera) and he did a great job.  The picture of Ryan that Kyle took captures one of the last outings with his “me”.  We (we meaning Jason) finally got serious about ditching the binky during all but bed and nap time.  It won’t lie, it was a pretty hellacious week.  Ryan directed most of his frustration at me and I sent the lion’s share of that frustration straight at Jason, but we survived and now that is over I am glad to have one last visible parenting hurdle no longer hanging over my head.  An upside is that I think Ryan now looks forward to bedtime, he will come to me around 8 or 8:30 and say “Iwannarock”, then run in his room, reach between the slats of his crib to retrieve his long lost friend and then go sit in the rocking chair and wait for me.  Back to the zoo, Ryan is just the perfect age and loved it, so proud to identify all of the animals and other things we ran across (BIRD! BIRD! BIRD! WATER! TREE!).  If he didn’t recognize the contents of the exhibit, he would just say “ANIMAL!  ANIMAL!”  Grant spent most of his time saying everything was boring, which he says about anything he doesn’t like (these “peas” are so boring) which seems like anything that does not involve the TV.  I know it is just a phase and things will get easier soon.

My big boys...

…continue to amaze me. Grant who has for so long any type of writing instrument, all of the sudden can’t get enough markers and pencils and chalk and crayons and paint. The picture is probably one of his first that depicts people. It is not of our family, but of Ashlie’s. It has Anthony, Ashlie, Lilly, Dexter and a big mushroom. I wish I could remember what he said about the mushroom, but all of his pictures have some amazing story behind them. I could listen to him talk forever. I asked him the other day what he remembered about the trip to Bennett last year with Jason, Andy and Kyle. He said “Fisherman don’t whine” and “there was a trailer but we couldn’t see the wheels”. Kyle continues his artistic endeavors. He is very prolific. They will do a project in art and he will come home and do it 20 more times. One of his favorites was the three line people drawing. I don’t know if I blogged about it, but for Jason’s Christmas, we made his 10 favorite line people projects into a big collage on Snapfish. I think it is so cool and it’s hanging in our hallway. The pic is his other passion, Legos. I wish I could say I was more supportive of this, but I really can’t stand any toy with more the 10 pieces, so the 300+ piece Lego sets are really more then I can handle. We have developed a workable system involving bowels and bags and containers, but I still cringe every time he sets up shop at the dining room table. His other big passion of late is his reading. I would say he is fluent now and it is just very cool. He was so proud the first time he read and entire chapter and could understand it and so was I.

Several thing I have not done lately. I did not wash my sheets, put them on the bed and then the next morning, proceed to pull them of the bed and stuff them back into the washer. That would be a sign of serious short term memory problems. I also did not take a huge pile of checks to deposit for PTA to the bank with not a single endorsement. That bank already thinks I am a whacko and that would have probably pushed them over the edge. I would not put two referenence to laundry in single post, but if I did, it would be to relate that Kyle has never had to ask "is there a basket of clothes somewhere that I can get some pants out of". Their laundry is always put away immediatly and they would think it abnormal to have to dig it out of a basket stashed in my bedroom or office.

Rotten

The title kinds of says it all.  It was a rookie mistake leaving only a 4 foot counter and a plastic cover between him and the leftover birthday cake.  He is so apt at scaling the cupboards that we have had to move our knife block to the top of the fridge (something not needed during the toddlerhood of either of his brothers).  The other pics almost make me cry.  When I was staying in the hospital and sleeping in 45 minute stretches between pumping and feeding him and meds and x-rays and labs, I had exactly one dream, a dream of Ryan as a toddler in front of our house riding his tricycle.  When I told Jason about it, it said that one day I was going to see it happen and cry, and he was so right.  I didn’t really think it would happen before he turned two though.  He is quite adept at propelling both the plastic and big tricycle, using just his little legs and on one of our few nice days, he has already discovered how cool it is to glide down the driveway like a little kamakazi.  The other pic, I just thought made him look so big in his button down, eating his sandwich and drinking his milk all by himself.  It also reminds me of yet another story of Grant’s wardrobe woes.  I have similar shirt in a 4T (I must have really went through a dressing them alike stage when Grant was 1 and Kyle was 4).  Anyways, Jason picked the shirt for Grant to wear to church and was met with the usual barrage of whines and moans that accompany any “church” clothes.  It went on a little longer then usual and we asked him what was wrong and he said “I look like a forest boy chopping trees”.  OoohK.

Jason's Birthday

I’ve decided I want some more pics in my blog book, even when I don’t have much to say.  Jason’s birthday was celebrated with the usual fanfare of dinner out followed by homemade cake and presents.  The boys were obviously excited about the presents and I’m sure he can’t wait to sport his new Star Wars shirt.  I really need to get my act together for his big 40^th next year.  I still remember that I was traveling a lot around his 30^th and didn’t plan anything and still feel bad about it.

Wake Me Up When This Is Over

This is pretty much what we have been doing of late. It started about the first week of Feb and since then at least one of us has been sick with one ailment or another. It starts with one and while the others might not get that exact illness, I think it ties up their immune system leaving them vulnerable to something else. At least Ryan is good at downing medicine. Sometimes he will actually open the drawer where we keep the syringes, dig one out and bring it to me. I think we are on our third bottle of ibuprofen. Kyle even missed his Valentine’s Party. I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of his box, it was basically Star Wars stickers on a big red heart. Nothing quite symbolizes love like a droid getting it’s head whacked off with a light saber. We are all a little better, but none of us is 100%. Good timing for the Winter Olympics. If couch sitting was an event, we would surely score a medal. Kyle is pretty into it this year and I always get addicted, so it has been fun to watch with him. His favorite teams are USA of course and Germany because Jason told him that his Great-Great Grandfather was born there. He always has his eye on the medal count and thought the US should concentrate on hockey because if you win that, everyone gets a medal so we would go up by like 20 in the medal count. Always thinking. The one big exception to the boys Olympic fever is all forms of figure skating, which makes Jason happy. Oh and one of the pics shows half of Kyle's face. Grant has taken to transforming the train table into a tent and sleeping under it. Kyle being ever such a good big brother, joins him from time to time. The first time he did, Grant was so excited, he came out the living room and proudly annouced "they were just having so much fun". Reapperance after bed time is not unusual. So much so that Ryan (who is usually getting rocked to sleep in the recliner which is a whole different post) will start yelling "Go Bed" when he sees his brothers. I wonder where he got that from?

New Year's Eve/Valentine's Day

So I didn’t quite make the New Year’s Eve by Valentine’s Day deadline, so maybe I should just combine the two.  We held our somewhat annual New Year’s Eve party and enjoyed spending time with the Haukap’s, Salmond’s and Schier’s.  We were trying to remember exactly when this tradition started and I am thinking 05, the year I was pregnant with Grant.  So that would make this number 5, actually 4, we skipped the year I was pregnant with Ryan.  I was sick, we had bunk beds pieces all over the basement and well, it just wasn’t the high point of our marriage.  I am glad we rebounded, because it is always so much fun.  The kids are getting more independent, so we don’t even have to take turns doing basement duty any more, we just pop a movie in the dvd player, shut the door and make a run for it, a good way to start the new year.  As for Valentine’s, I didn’t get pics, but the boys made me some very sweet valentine’s, although Grant refused to sign his name.  At Miss Regina’s urging, we have been working on using a capitol G, then all lower case and to say it is not is favorite activity is an understatement.  He has made several valiant efforts, as long as it is his idea to do so.  I’ve never been much into Valentine’s, but wanted the boys to see Jason and I exchange gifts and cards.  The charade went well and it was a good excuse to pick up a new book I had been wanting so that Jason would have a present for me.  He added a really sweet homemade card, so everything worked out perfectly.