9 Months Already?!

Time is flying! How can Blake be 9 months old? On a side note, they say give yourself 9 months to get the baby weight off, since it took you 9 months to put it on. I'm still carrying 15 pounds of baby weight, so I need to get my tush in gear. Back to the baby talk.

Stats:
Weight: 20 lbs (exactly!)
Height: 28 3/8 inches
50th Percentile across the board

My darling little baby is mobile (God help us!). He's not crawling, per se, but he is doing army maneuvers like he's on a serious mission. Which he usually is. His MO is to get to any possible item that is not baby friendly. Oh, is that something I could choke on? I must have it! Could I be electrocuted? I must put it in my mouth! Will I bonk myself in the head with it? Then I must hold it and swing it around! He is really close to full-on hands and knees crawling. He gets up on all fours and rocks a lot now. And close behind that will be the pulling up. He's already shown interest in that activity. What do I have to say about this? SLOW DOWN! You don't need to do it all at once, sweetheart. Take your time and just slowly master one thing at a time. Hmm. I don't think I'll get my way on this one. He is determined to be in the action.

I have set up the Superyard in the livingroom as a means of limited freedom. He can move around in there with a variety of baby safe toys. And at first, that was acceptable to him. But now, when I place him in "his" space, he gets a bit irked with me about it. And big brothers only want to be in there with him (or throw their toys over the top to him, since he likes them so much). Today I took a 2-minute potty break and came back in the livingroom to find both of them in there with him. Keep in mind, there is no opening in this pen. So I asked how they had gotten in there. George had slid over the top off of the couch arm, and Joshua had scooted in there underneath the bottom (while someone held it up for him). So there were 3 kids, an exersaucer, and various toys in this tiny little space. It was hilarious, and had I been thinking I would have snapped a photo. And in my mind I projected myself forward a few years and could only shudder at the idea of the kinds of mischief that will be carried out so stealthily and swiftly by my curious and ingenious offspring.

Blake seems to like most foods at this point. I try to get 3 solid meals a day in him, but it usually ends up being 2. He has only just been introduced to finger foods, and delights in doing it himself (go figure). I need to step up my game in the feeding department - I would like for him to get the same standard of nutrition that I gave his brothers during their first year. But it is really tough.

Blake is a spitfire, but he is also delightful, silly, smart, fiercely curious, independent, sweet, and so cute I can hardly stand it. He is a little blonde-haired, blue-eyed blessing. We are so grateful to have him in our lives (even though he has made things significantly more challenging!). Babyhood is racing by at an alarming rate. I'm trying to cherish the moments and hold on to the memories (and document them, though I have failed miserably to make note of his milestones - oh, the guilt!), but all too soon he will be racing around here trying to keep up with his big brothers. *sigh*

Gleeful Gimp

Despite his limitations, Joshua has astounded me with his attitude (mostly). He is happy now as long as he gets to scoot around on the floor and be part of the action. I was so worried that he was going to be super whiny and demanding, but he has been a trooper and been quite pleasant! God is good, and has extended us a tremendous amount of grace through this experience. Here are a few pictures of things Josh has been able to enjoy even in a body cast:

Josh taking a picture of Blake.

Using his bar to help him get up.My personal favorite - he can swing! This was taken just today.
Before mobility - relaxing in a bean bag chair.The first wheel chair they sent us - an adult-sized monstrosity. That reminds me, I need to take some pictures of his pediatric one. It's MUCH better.
Petting the doggy.
Taking matters into his own hands (too bad it's just plastic).
An activity book we received in the mail from a friend was the perfect diversion early on.

I love that he is delighting in the simple things. He is still the same curious, giggly, silly boy underneath all of that fiberglass.

Go Fish

So I MUST plug our new favorite music group: Go Fish. This is a trio of cool Christian guys who make kids music that parents can enjoy too. You'll see a new feature on the right side of the page - scroll down until you reach the purple box and click to hear one of our favorite songs by them (a couple of our very favs were not available to link to). Chris and I love when the boys request them because we love to listen to them too! It is now THE music we listen to in the car. In fact, when the boys hear any music other than Go Fish, they will say "No, I want to hear MUSIC!" So Go Fish IS music to them right now.

How did I hear of them, you might wonder? Well, they played at MOPS convention (it was AWESOME) a couple of weeks ago in Dallas (and last year at MOPS they kicked off the first meeting with one of their songs, so that was my true first introduction). Only at one of their concerts will you find thousands of people screaming and rockin' out to "If You're Happy and You Know It." They had a special deal for us MOPS leaders, and I ended up with 4 of their CD's. I don't regret it a bit! I'm really looking forward to listening to the Christmas CD (resisting for now).

Check them out: http://www.gofishguys.com/

I HIGHLY recommend this music. It is fun, upbeat, varied, dance-able, hilarious, cool, and uplifting!

Josh's New Found (Limited) Freedom

Look what Josh can do! (Please overlook the bad lighting - our ceiling light is currently on the fritz).

Up until Tuesday, Josh had not shown any desire to try and move around. I was not about to push him to do it - he had been complaining of pain still. But at MOPS on Tuesday, they called me over to take him to the potty. When I had him on the floor, after I had put his diaper back on, he started scooting a little bit. The other kids were all on the floor playing, and I asked him if he wanted to scoot over and play with them. He said yes, and proceeded to scoot over like he'd been doing it all along.

Since then he's been a whirling dervish! He can roll over now, and scoot wherever he wants to go...and he is SOOO much happier.

It's not all sunshine and roses, though. He is experiencing a bit more pain from all of the extra exercise. He is definitely more demanding (Can you put me on the couch? Can you put me on the floor? Mommy! I need you! Come over here!). And he's starting to get itchy. REAL itchy. Poor kid. I scratch as far up under the edges of his cast as I can, and I can feel the horribly dry, scaly skin under there. I can only imagine having that kind of itchiness and not being able to scratch it. And still 3 weeks to go (not even!).

I think he likes his new ability to get around despite the cast. So much so that he has said a few times in the last couple of days, "Don't take my cast off." I think he'll still be happy to get it off, especially once he gets into the bathtub for the first time.

The Most Fun/Most Awful Day: Part 2 - Most Awful

Oh, the day at the zoo was a blast. And after we got home and had the boys fed, bathed, and ready for bed (at 7:30pm, no less - they had no nap and we knew they would go to sleep after all of the excitement of the day) - Joshua asked for something else to eat. I sometimes acquiese, but usually the answer is no because their teeth are brushed and it's bedtime (sometimes they ask just to try and stay up, which I think this was a ploy to do just that - the grandparents were here, after all!). But this time I decided to go ahead and give them a bowl of cereal since they hadn't really eaten a whole lot that day.

And about 5 minutes after I made that decision - a freak accident occured. Josh slipped on a bouncy ball and broke his leg. His left femur, to be exact. Here are the details (if you are my friend on Facebook you have most likely seen this story):

When it happened, Chris heard a "pop." He told me that, and I figured it was a joint popping out of place or something. But Josh continued to cry, and could not walk, and so Chris and his dad (it just so happens his parents are visiting from Colorado) took him to Urgent Care. They sent him to the hospital. My mother-in-law and I stayed home with the other two kiddos (and I really didn't think it was going to be anything too bad, honestly). We found out around 9:00pm that he did in fact break his leg. When Chris called to tell me that they were keeping him overnight, I decided to go. They finally got a room around 11:30pm, and I got there around midnight.

They were not able to set the leg right away due to the risk of swelling in the cast. Because of this, he was in extreme pain. They had him on morphine, but it didn't seem to be helping much. Every couple of minutes, his leg muscle would spasm, he would jerk awake and scream out in pain and then cry for a bit. I cannot explain the absolute toture it was to watch my child go through so much agony. Finally around 3:30am they decided to give him valium to help with the spasms. Even that didn't seem to help much. Chris and I took turns holding his hand and trying to calm him with each outburst. It was beyond horrible.

Finally our pediatrician came in around 7:00am, and we told her what he had gone through all night. She promptly upped his morphine dosage (God bless her), plus at 8:00am he had another dose of valium, so he finally was able to sleep for a couple of hours. We had also seen the orthropedic surgeon around 7:30am, and he informed us that he would be doing surgery at 12:30pm (are you kidding me?! 5 MORE HOURS?!). He also told us he was going to be putting Josh in a hip spica cast, which is a cast that starts at the waist, goes down his entire left leg (to the toes), and down his right leg to the knee. Completely immobile (do you realize the energy level of this child?).

We went to pre-op with him, and right before they were going to take him for surgery, he vomited several times in a row and emptied the entire contents of his stomach. We helplessly sent him off for surgery, which took about an hour, and they reported back to us that all was successful. We had to wait an extrodinarily long time to see Josh again, because he was having a tough time waking up in the recovery area (plus he got sick again one more time). It took forever to get discharged, but we finally left the hospital at 10:00pm on Thursday. We were really glad that we forced the nurse to give him one more dose of pain medication before we left, since we had to stop by an all-night pharmacy to get his prescriptions filled.

So what had started out to be a super fun special day ended up turning into a how-could-this-happen nightmare. And pretty much killed the fun for the remainding 2+ days of my in-laws' vacation (but what a memorable one it will always be!). And now for the pictures (again - these will be familiar to Facebook friends):


Daddy feeding him ice chips - his first nourishment for over 24 hours.

Right before we put him in the car to take him home - poor little guy.

But thankfully he fits in the car seat, and the morphine kicked in so he could sleep.

His set up on the loveseat.

He can still use the potty - thank you God!

Getting kisses from the baby - he missed his brother!

Josh returns the love.

He had been begging us to sleep on his belly - and this was his first belly nap - on Daddy's belly.

We hooked him up in the wagon so he could go outside.

And of course he had to be next to the baby.

Melanie came to visit, bearing Get Well gifts. We love Melanie!

So the zoo and a broken leg, all in one day. Can't say it's boring around here!

And, once again the formatting of text-to-picture is all weird, and I cannot seem to fix it. Hopefully you can figure out how they match up. If not, my apologies.