Miss Me?

I used to be so good at blogging. Then my kid started walking and talking. Ah, well, it's okay. For now. :)

I haven't taken many photos of the kiddo lately besides with my phone. So that's what these are (except for the first one...I took it from my dad's blog). Just a bunch of random things going on in our lives.

Adam was out of town this past weekend, so Saturday afternoon, I loaded up the kid and the dogs and we went to stay overnight with my parents. We had lots of fun and were fed very well (the diet was pretty much out the window...). When we got there Saturday afternoon, Sutton wanted to play outside but it was a bit cold and I hadn't brought a jacket. So my mom scrounged this up for him and it was pretty darn cute and funny.

 

It was almost like a mini-vacation. We got to stay in the guest suite complete with a remodeled bathroom...I got to sit in their hot tub while my mom bathed my kid and put on his jammies...my dogs left me alone for once in their life because they had more interesting playmates (my parents dogs)...we were fed amazing food (turkey, mashed potatoes, peas and crescent rolls for dinner; pancakes for breakfast). I could do that again.

The kid and dogs were exhausted by the time we left late Sunday morning. I tried to keep them awake on the 30 minute drive home so they would sleep when we got here (and maybe I could get in a nap too?!) but it was hopeless. Just. So. Tired.

 

Friday afternoon before all the fun with my parents, we had a coffee date with our friend Jaclyn. Sutton decided to bring out his crazy side and we didn't last long in Mead's Corner before we had to get in the stroller and book it to a nearby park.

  

Sutton and I had an Orange Leaf and park date one afternoon. He's really into feeding himself now, and even though it's messy, it's fun that he's able to do it.

This is the photo we sent Daddy while he was away to tell him we missed him.

 Daddy's back! All is right with the world. Sutton loves to copy everything we do. For example, he has a splinter in his leg that we CANNOT get out, though we have tried and tried with a tweezers. He cries and wriggles when we try. But when we stop, he wants the tweezers, and he touches it to his leg in the same spot as if he's going to get it out. Example #2: I was rubbing lotion on certain spots on my feet one night, and he was playing in the medicine cabinet (closely supervised, of course). He found a tube of cream that looked similar to mine, so he got it out, touched his finger to the top, then touched his foot, as if he was rubbing it in. Then he had to do it to Daddy's feet. And mine.

Well, he also likes to "help" Adam airbrush his RC planes. He found an empty airbrush bottle and started touching it to the plane right where Adam was trying to paint. Super cute. After Adam cleaned out his airbrush, he let Sutton hold it and even press the button so he could hear air coming out.

And just a photo of my cute sweetie after his FOUR AND A HALF hour nap two days ago. I didn't know what to do with myself. It was glorious. :)

Pretending

So...Sutton's daddy flies RC planes. In case you didn't know. :)

Sutton found the remote to the volume on our computer and decided that it's a transmitter to his airplane.

That was yesterday. Today, he's taken to yelling at the plane "GO! GO!" Still not working, buddy. :)

Sutton {20 months}

20 sounds like such a big number! Way bigger than 19. Can't believe you're 20 months old, sweet boy!

Sutton, at 20 months:

*You talk all the time. A lot of it is still unintelligible, but you have so many words. "Alright!" is a favorite, and "please" has evolved into "bay." Who knows. But I hear "bay" about a million times a day.

*You're a pretty content little dude. Usually happy and easy going. You throw fits every so often, but you can usually be calmed down relatively quickly.

*If we need you to stop playing with a toy or to leave a park or something, you'll get mad if we just take it from you. But if we ask you to say bye-bye to it, you will and then you'll leave it completely willingly. I love that this works so well with you and hope that lasts awhile.

*Each morning I wake up to "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy." over the monitor. Pretty cute.

*You don't like to be messy, you like things to be neat and in their place (did you see the straight line of goldfish on your tray? You loooove it when I line them up like that). So different from your Daddy and I.

*You are pretty affectionate. You like to give us hugs and kisses. Right now, you HAVE to hold our hand all the time. If we're playing downstairs and you want to go across the room, you'll hold your hand out so we'll take it so we'll walk over there with you.

*You're pretty attached to your Daddy and I when we drop you off at places, but you're really starting to warm up to playing and being totally fine once we're gone. The church nursery, the Y nursery, and Ginger's house are now familiar enough to you that you're pretty okay when you're there.

*Still in love with airplanes. You recently started saying "WHYYYYYY!!!!" when you want to fly an airplane. You can't get the F-L. We try so hard to get you to say "ffffffffly" and it's always "wwwwwwhy!!"

*Any time you see a picture of yourself, you happily exclaim "baby!"

*You love dipping foods in ketchup and Ranch. You're becoming a pickier eater. Fruit is still the fave, but most meats are a no go. You pick the meat and cheese off sandwiches so you can just eat the bread.

*This week we've really started trying to get you down to one long nap per day instead of two. You've been taking two 2-hour naps still, but I think you could be just fine with one 3-hour nap.

*You have a new found love of baths. We're so happy about this since you used to hate baths. If we just say the word bath (we have to spell a lot of words these days), you go upstairs and start bouncing next to the tub because you justcan'twait to get in. You love splashing and you cover your eyes when we pour water over your head. You love pouring water from a cup while you're in there.

*Anything that involves moving around is your favorite. You love dancing (oh, still with the dancing), wrestling, running, jumping, kicking the soccer ball, and playing outside. Climbing of any kind is awesome. You're such a boy.

*You love the park, but you still need me to be with you while you're climbing around. So I'm usually the only adult up on the equipment with all the kids. Oh well. :)

*You go to bed at 8pm and usually sleep without a peep until 7 or 7:30am. We're trying to get you to nap 12pm-3pm, but that doesn't always go as planned.

*You eat oatmeal and bananas every morning for breakfast and have since you were about 12 months. I eat the same thing as you and I'm not tired of it, so hopefully you're not either!

*You weigh around 28 pounds and are getting pretty heavy to carry! I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday for some shoulder pain I've been having and I'm pretty sure it's all your fault. It's okay, I still love holding you.

*On January 25th, you pooped in the potty. It hasn't happened since. But what a joyous day. You tell me almost every time you poop, but AFTER the fact, not before. So we need to work on that. I'm still not completely sure you understand the whole idea, but you like sitting on the potty and you're learning that a poopy diaper is uncomfortable, so those are the first steps. I know that boys generally potty train slower/later than girls, so I'm not rushing anything.

*You still use a pacifier for sleeping and sometimes during the day if you're having a hard time. You have to have it and your two blankies in the car on the way to the Y every morning or else you'll throw a fit.

*Our bedtime routine isn't very involved. You just have a snack in your high chair and then we change your diaper and change you into jammies and lay you down. You're usually out immediately.

*I (usually) love that you're able to express yourself more, able to tell me what you want or how you're feeling. You still don't completely understand the concept of the word "no" (thank God), but when I ask you if you're done in the bathtub, or if you're sleepy, you shake your head no.

*Before every nap time and bed time, I gather your two blankies and sling them over my shoulder before I pick you up. Once I pick you up, I put give you your pacifier, and then you lay your head on my shoulder as we walk to your room to lay down. I love your little cuddles.

*Your favorite show right now is Go Diego Go, you like to dance to the music. Since Diego speaks a lot of Spanish as well as English, some of the Spanish words stick in my head. I often randomly say "activate" in Spanish, which is pronounced "ac-tee-vah-tay" really loudly (I'm probably just as strange as my kid...), and any time I say that, you run to the computer and ask for Diego. We just recently decided you were watching too much Diego and started to cut back to like one show per day.

*The above photo is for your Daddy. He likes to comment on your "buck teeth" which are totally not buck teeth, they just have a little space between them. I think it's cute. Your teeth having been bothering you more lately, you've been chewing on your fingers a lot. You have a bunch now, I'm not even sure how many all front four are there on top, makes you look older I think.

My handsome little man, I always think it's impossible for me to love you any more, and then another month rolls past and I find I'm so much more in love with you! I feel so blessed to be your mama, and you are the most awesome kid on the planet. Your Daddy agrees with me. :)

Sadie Update

Miss Sadie is back home and thriving! She's completely back to her normal self, aside from taking 8 pills per day and wanting to drink constantly...thus having some accidents in the house.

Our clingy, loud, crazy, bed-hogging girl is back. Here's a photo of the Team, reunited to take on the neighborhood cats.

Thursday Randomness

We Adam got quite the haul from his students for Valentine's Day. Lots of chocolate and treats. I'm drinking my coffee out of this cute Valentine's mug this morning. Yum.

Diesel really wanted to come hang out with me in the studio today while I work. He spent the first 10 minutes "doing his rounds" aka sniffing every inch of the building since new people had been in here since he was here last. Then he snatched a baby toy before getting comfy on the beanbag.

Sadie is doing good but still not home. They wanted to keep her one more night to see if she could get a bit of her appetite back before coming home. She refuses to eat most things...they're feeding her actual chicken breasts, and this is the complete opposite of the Sadie we know, who has to be yelled at to calm down and eat slower during meal time. Hopefully today we'll get her back.

I had a workshop here on Saturday, and it was awesome and crazy. At one point, we had 7 adults and 3 kids in this tiny space. Chaotic but fun.

This is the photo Adam gave me for our 10 year anniversary (of being together, not married...). I love having it on my desk and having a reminder of my sweet boys while I'm working.

I LOVE my two-screen work station. It's the best ever. I don't think I could ever go back to just having one screen, especially while working in Photoshop.

Sadie

We've had quite the adventure over the past week with our newest pup, Sadie. It's been heart-wrenching and tearful and such a roller coaster...I'm a bit exhausted.

To start from the beginning...

Sadie had never been fixed when we got her (something you're supposed to do when they're much younger than she is), so we decided to go ahead with the surgery last Monday.

I took her in, they did an initial exam, and I left. The surgery ended up going great, she stayed overnight to come completely off the anesthetic, and then I picked her up the next day.

We got home and she was really sore, so I brought her bed out into the living room so she could lay down but still be around us. And also so she wouldn't try to jump on our bed and break open her incision.

She slept a lot, which was to be expected.

I stayed up late that night out in my studio working, and when I came to bed and turned out the lights, there was suddenly this loud gush of water from her. I thought her incision had broken open or something, so I sat up and turned on the lights and woke Adam and saw that she'd thrown up. After cleaning it up and getting settled back in with the lights off, it happened all over again.

So we moved her bed into the bathroom so that if she threw up, it'd be on a tile floor instead of our bedroom carpet.

The next morning, I left to go workout, and was gone for about an hour. When I got home, the floor in the living room and dining room was covered in vomit. It took me 45 minutes to clean up. I called the vet to see if this was normal, and they said it wasn't and that I should bring her back in. So I did.

She threw up in the car again, and once we got to the vet, she was just very sad and lethargic and weak. They wanted to put her on an IV because she was dehydrated, and give her a few medicines to try to get her feeling better. So we left her there overnight.

I called the next day to see if she was doing better and if I could come get her. The doctor said no, she was still very sick and he wanted to keep her another night.

Same thing the next day when I called.

Finally they decided to do a blood test on Friday. I took Sutton to go visit her to maybe lift her spirits, and the doctor had the results of the test. They were really really bad. Not sure what all the numbers meant, but one test whose number was supposed to be below 25 was at 150. He said he didn't think these problems could be related to the surgery, and that there wasn't anything else they could do besides keep her on IVs and see if her numbers went down. He wasn't optimistic at all.

While I was there, we couldn't take her out of her cage because she was hooked to an IV, so I just had to stick my fingers through the bars to pet her. She was so sad. I was trying to choke back tears while talking to the doctor who was basically telling me that she was having all-out kidney failure and while he would try some things over the weekend, there was probably nothing we could do.

I left the vet and cried the whole way home. All weekend, I tried to make peace with the fact that Monday morning, we were going to have to make the final decision to put her down. Seeing all of Sadie's things at our house would sting my heart...her food dish, her bed, the lack of her constant presence.

The thing is...I've always thought she was the most annoying dog ever. We half-heartedly tried to get rid of her for a few months after we got her. Mostly because of her clingyness...we took that as a sign of her not being happy as an indoor dog. But she did NOT feel the same way about us. She attached herself to me like no dog I've ever had. She was ALWAYS where I was, even if it meant she was uncomfortable.

And as it goes...I'd come to really love her too.

So when Monday morning came around, I knew I couldn't deal with having to tell the doctor to go ahead and put her to sleep when he called with the final blood results. So I jumped the gun, called them as soon as they were open, and told them I'd be unavailable all day, and that the doctor needed to call Adam with the results instead of me.

Mid-morning yesterday, I got an email from Adam. He said that the doctor had said her blood tests came back much improved and that she'd actually eaten something. He said they were going to start giving her pills instead of injections. He said that they wanted to keep her til Wednesday to see if the numbers would go down anymore, but then after that, she could go home.

Oh my goodness.

I didn't know what to feel. I had already begun to let her go, and suddenly I get her back? All the things I'd been thinking all weekend - how I wouldn't see her again, how unfair it was to have to go through this all again just a year after we lost Axl...those things were all gone now?

We went to visit her at the vet last night and she's lost a ton of weight, but she was really happy to see us.

We're still not completely out of the woods, but things are looking up, and we'll hopefully have our Sadie-girl back tomorrow sometime.

Echo

Sutton's pediatrician heard a heart murmur at his 18 month appointment at the end of December. She scheduled us for an echocardiogram with a pediatric cardiologist for Tuesday. When she found it, she tried not to make a big deal out of it, just said that since she heard it, she was obligated to have it checked out. So I was also trying not to make a big deal out of it, but as I'm sure many of you know...that's not easy when you're a mama.

The whole month waiting game wasn't super fun, but I did my best.

I was relieved when our appointment day was finally here, so I could just KNOW.

Sutton's been getting up before 7am lately, which he has never done in his life (there was a while there that he was sleeping every morning til 9am!), so his napping has been a bit off. Consequently, I had to wake him up from his afternoon nap to go to the doctor. He wasn't thrilled.

Poor little lamb baby.

When we got to the doctor, I had to strip him down so they could do weight, blood pressure, heartbeat, all that good stuff. It's fun to keep a toddler still for those tests. :) Then, they did an EKG. That was really difficult for a toddler. (I didn't get any photos of that because I was busy holding him.) They put all these little stickers on his chest and hooked wires to them. He did okay while they were being put on there, but then he started trying to pull them off.

So, the nurse gave him a sucker. He's only had a sucker one other time in his life (that I'm aware of), and it lasted about 10 seconds before I took it away because of the mess. He LOVED it. Went to town. After they were done with the EKG, he just stood in the middle of the exam room in his diaper, eating a sucker and drooling everywhere. :) It was super cute.

After a few minutes, we were led to another room, where they did the actual echo, which is a sonogram of the heart. They put on a movie for him to watch, and I laid next to him on the table, and he did pretty good. They got a good view of everything, and said that while he does have a murmur, it's nothing to be worried about and everything looks great. They don't need to see him back or anything.

I guess he has what they call an "innocent murmur." The doctor explained it to me but honestly, I was so relieved he was fine that I didn't retain all the info. I took him for ice cream afterwards...probably more for me than him, but that's okay. :)

He was already on such a sugar high from the sucker, that he couldn't even sit in his seat, he just stood on his chair, looking out the window at the cars going by and yelling.

In other news, he's kind of started using the potty. I mean, we're mostly just introducing the idea. He'd been coming to tell us when he went in his diaper sometimes, so we figured it couldn't hurt. The very first day, I'd sat him on there in the morning, and then in the afternoon, we were in the bathroom (I was getting ready, he was playing), and he suddenly stood up, went over to the potty and started pushing and getting the red eyes. So I quickly undressed him and sat him on there and he WENT. In the potty. Whoa. It was a fluke, but I'm totally okay with that. :) 

He hasn't gone on there since, but he will often go into the bathroom of his own accord and put his little seat on the potty and want to sit up there. I think he just likes it because he knows we read books while he's sitting there.

And to end, here's a cute photo of him on our date to Orange Leaf yesterday. He wasn't a huge fan of the actual frozen yogurt, but he ate all my strawberries and chocolate chips.