Surgery is set

We decided we will not put Lauren in the research study.  Just too much time and travel involved.  So she is scheduled for surgery on May 24th at Cardinal Glennon Childrens Hospital with Dr. Mitchell.

We've already begun shopping for special cups for her to use after the surgery.  I'm already nervous.

Boo boos

Blake is all boy and definitely giving me a run for my money these days.  He is climbing on everything including my kitchen island, chairs, furniture, you name it regularly.  He walking up the stairs and down instead of crawling, running at full speed everywhere and well just being a toddler!  You would think things like this would eventually catch up with him and cause him injury (not to say they still won't).  But instead walking causes him injury. 

Saturday morning Blake was walking in the garage holding a plastic rake (toddler size, Little Tykes I believe).  Anyway, he tripped and fell and the rake busted open the area below his nose and above his lip, in the area of your lip that has a fold in it.  The cut is not deep but is jagged.  So we debated whether or not to take him to the ER or not and finally decided to take him to priority care instead since it really wasn't threating.  Well after waiting an hour or so we finally saw the doctor.  The doctor thought we should try butterflying it first to see if that would work.  So after he cleaned it all up and got the butterfly on, Blake immediately ripped it off.  It wasn't even on 1/2 second!  So the doctor and I discussed doing stitches but that would mean taking him over to St. Louis and putting him to sleep.  I decided it really wasn't worth is since it is not a deep cut and I'll deal with the scar.  I feel bad about this but I just don't think I can put him through the trauma of stitches!  Blake is completely unbothered by the whole thing even though it's all swollen and looks terrible.  Of course he was supposed to get 18 month pictures taken this week.  That will definitely not be happening now! 

Thank heaven for little boys, they make life fun!

ENT Update

I took Lauren to the ENT yesterday at Cardinal Glennon.  They recommended that she have her tonsils and adenoids removed.  So we are scheduled for surgery on May 24th.  We could have done it earlier, but they want her to be out of school for two weeks so I decided to push it back until school was out.  Not a great way for her to start her summer but it's better than her being sad about missing school.  Dr. Mitchell will be her surgeon.  If anyone has had a child that has gone through this and has advice/suggestions for me I would appreciate hearing from you.  My greatest concern is getting her to drink afterwards because she does not drink much normally so it's going to be a struggle.  I'm also very concerned about how she'll react to the anesthesia since Bradley has a bad history with it.  Hopefully she'll do okay though. 

While at the ENT they identified Lauren as a good candidate for a study they have going on right now.  They are working with five other childrens hospitals across the country to determine how the T&A surgery impacts kids suffering from sleep apnea (what Lauren appears to have).  This would involve a couple sleep studies and a few more visits to the ENT.  She also may be delayed on her surgery up to seven months which would put us into the start of the school year.  So I haven't made a decision yet whether or not we are going to be part of the study or not.  Bradley and I need to discuss it more. 

Thanks to everyone who recommended ENTs, etc.  I finally decided on Cardinal Glennon over Childrens simply because I could get an appointment earlier.  Not that it makes a big difference since we're now waiting until school is out anyways!  II've heard good things about Dr. Mitchell and Glennon so I'm glad we're going there. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! 

Little Gym Update

Little Gym has been really good for Blake.  It's a perfect way for him to safely climb and run like he loves to do so much.  He is so happy the entire time we are there.  Each time we go he's getting braver and braver about trying new skills.  This past week he walked for the first time on the low balance beam by himself holding on to the support bars.  Up to this point, he's been scared of it!  His other big accomplishment is holding himself up on the parrallel bars.  He is so strong for his age to do this!  In fact his teacher sent him a card in the mail to tell him how great he did on the bars, definitely something to go in his baby book.  Thanks Miss Dawn, you made my day!

18 month check up

Blake had his 18 month check up on Friday.  It was so nice to go to the dr for a healthy child for once instead of a sick child!  And no shots! 

Blake is a very heavy and solid boy.  He's also very tall.  I didn't realize just how tall until he started little gym and I see him next to kids his own age.  I was guessing that he was almost 30 lbs and I wasn't far off.  Here are his stats:

29 lbs 12 oz (90%)
35 1/2 inches (97%)
19 1/4 in head

I pulled out Lauren's book just to compare.  Her stats at 18 months were 25 lbs and 33 1/4 inches. That's a pretty big difference on weight, not as much on height.

I'm so thankful for two healthy children! 

Eating his toes!

We have some serious work to do on Blake's table manners. For some reason Blake gets obsessed with his feet after he is done eating a meal. It started as just taking his socks off. Then he started putting his feet on the table. Now he is removing his socks and trying to eat his toes! I'm not proud of this trick but had to take a picture of it. Oh to be that flexible again!

Dance Costume

Lauren has her dance recital coming up on May 22nd. She received her costume the other night at class and couldn't wait to try it on. I got a good laugh of watching her try to shake it and make the fringe on her costume move. Blake had fun trying to grab the fringe as she moved. I just hope she keeps her enthusiasm up when the recital actually gets here! She has a history of stage fright....

All dressed up

Lauren has had the privledge of attending a bunch of birthday parties lately. These are pictures of her after attending her friend Makenna's princess party at Hugz and Fitz (the same place we had Lauren's rock star party). The girls all looked adorable! I couldn't get over how grown up she looks with make up and her hair all up! My baby is growing up too fast!

Beef Expo and Puppies

We spent the last weekend in February in Springfield for the IL Beef Expo. We had a heifer in the sale on Saturday and two showing on Sunday. Blake came down with a fever Friday morning but we went ahead since he had no other symptoms besides a fever. With motrin in him, he acted great. That all changed at 11 pm Friday night when Blake decided he was not going to sleep in the hotel room. I fought with him from 11 until 3am trying to get him to sleep. It was a nightmare and one I pray we don't repeat when we go on vacation soon! Anyways, we made it to the sale on Saturday and ended up leaving to go home Saturday evening because Blake just was not himself. I decided one restless night in a hotel was enough. So we missed the show on Sunday but Bradley stayed to watch our heifer. All of the cattle did well so we were pleased.



Here is Blake getting up close and personal with one of the heifers.



My cousin Ryan lives in Springfield and has a new littler of American Bulldog puppies. We went to see them prior to going home. They were adorable! Lauren loved them all and Blake was frankly scared of them.



It was hard for me not to take one of the puppies home with us!

Dancing Queen

A couple weekends ago we attended a wedding of Bradley's cousin Crystal. Lauren loves weddings especially the reception. As you can see she's our resident dancing queen and Blake is taking careful watch of all her moves. His only dance move is spinning until he falls over!