Playground

As today was an amazingly beautiful spring day, we decided to take the boy and the dog out to play a little bit. Sam ran like a mad dog chasing her ball all over the field and the boy was introduced to the wonderful world of playgrounds.

Brad and Mike watching Sam-O run.

Trying out the rock climbing wall.

Trying to determine whether the swing was fun or scary.

Going down the slide with mom.

Admiring the lovely creation dad made with random sidewalk chalk that he found nearby.

Some Random Pictures

Here are some recent pictures of baby boy...

Modeling his fun red moose jammies.

Snoozing with mom and Sam on Sunday afternoon.

Practicing sitting up and playing with my toys.

Hanging out with Brooke.

Hanging out with dad.

Enjoying the nice weather at Castlewood state park with Mom, dad, Chris, Katie, Sam and Duchess

Hanging out with Tracy.

Happy Weekend!

I meant to post this yesterday, but then for some reason I couldn't log onto any blogspot websites all day, so you get it today instead. Happy Weekend a day late!

Doh

So I did it. I went and broke my new car already. While I was driving home from work yesterday a giant pipe appeared out of no where in the middle of the highway and jumped up and attacked the underside of my car (you can ask my boss, she was right behind me when it happened and she agrees it appeared out of no where). I thought everything was ok until this odd scraping noise started. So I pulled off the highway and stopped at a sketchy gas station (there was a sign in the store that said something to the effect of "if you have a concealed carry permit please keep your gun out of sight unless you see a criminal pull a gun in the store"...classy place I know). I surveyed the damage and determined that the big piece designed to protect my undercarriage had lost a battle to the pipe and was not quite attached anymore. Luckily the sketchy gas station had electrical tape, so I bought the most expensive roll of electrical tape ever and spent the next 10 minutes trying to tape the under carriage protector thingy back on. I made it home without any problems and was met with Brad's disapproving eyes. I tried to explain that it was good that I hit the pipe with the Rav-4 and not the prizm because 1) the prizm would not have cleared the pipe and there would have been much more damage; 2) We have way better insurance on the Rav-4 (if necessary) and 3) the Rav-4 is still under warranty (though I doubt this would fall under the warranty)...his argument...I shouldn't have hit the pipe (duh). So now I am back to driving the Prizm for the time being.


Here is a picture of baby boy from a few weeks ago to make this whole post a little cheerier!

A Case of the Blahs

Mike seems to be doing much better. Unfortunately Brad and I appear to have caught a bug and are now trying to make sure we don't get the baby sick. What a fun couple of days. To lighten things up a bit I've included some cute pictures:


Hi Mom, froggy and I are just chillin.

Oh Mr. Frog you tell the funniest jokes.

The Worst 36 hours of my life

Kind of a scary title I have there. I imagine all sorts of things are running through your minds. But here is a timeline of how my life went from around 5am on March 17 to around 5pm on March 18.

5:00am 3/17: Mike wakes up (after sleeping for 8 hours!). I pick him up and he immediately vomits all over me. Not the normal little spitup he usually does, but forceful, column of yuck, vomiting.

5:01am: He does it again as I lay him on the changing table.

5:15am: he does it again after I feed him

5:17am: he does it again all over our bed as I go in to talk to Brad about what could be wrong with him.

6:45 am: I feed him again and he keeps everything down, so I decide the morning stuff was a fluke and I continue getting ready for work.

7:40am: I drop him off at daycare with the strict instructions to call me if anything out of the ordinary happens (most specifically the vomiting).

10:00am: I call daycare to see how he is doing (they tell me he is still sleeping and hasn't eaten yet).

11:00am: I call daycare to see how he is doing (he just woke up and is starting to eat).

2:00pm: Daycare calls Brad to tell him he vomited.

2:30pm: Brad picks Mike up, talks to daycare about what happened and calls the pediatrician.

3:00pm: Brad and Mike go to the pediatrician. He thinks everything is ok and we should just watch him. They postulate that he may have picked up a bit of a stomache bug.

7:00pm: I feed him and he vomits all over the place again.

8:30pm: I am carrying him around and look down and notice he has spit up all over my arm and it is pea soup green (Happy St. Patricks day, right??)

8:45pm: Brad calls the emergency line for our pediatrician (apparently green spitup can be a sign of an intestinal blockage) who recommends that we get to the ER within the hour.

9:30pm: We arrive at Cardinal Glennon Children's hospital.

9:45pm - 2:00am 3/18: They give Mike and IV to start getting some fluids in him (he was fairly dehydrated from all of the vomiting). They can't get it on the first arm, so they end up sticking the second arm as well. After the IV they order an abdominal x-ray to see if there is an obvious blockage. There isn't, so they order an ultrasound. Luckily they just keep us in the ultrasound room for a while after they are done and Mike napped for about 90 minutes. The ultrasound didn't really show anything out of the ordinary so they decided to do imaging with contrast. A tube was stuck down his nose and some sort of imaging contrast pumped into him then they took x-rays to see if the contrast was making its way through him. These tests pretty much showed that he didn't have a blockage (good news because there is a good chance he would have gone to the OR that night if he did), but they still weren't sure what was wrong with him.

2:00am: They decide to admit him to the hospital

3:00am: The paperwork is completed and we finally get taken to his room

4:00am: The nurses have finished evaluating him (he now weighs 14lb 9oz as a side note) and he is finally somewhat settled for the night (or I guess early morning???)

4:00am-6:30am: Brad and I share a twin sized couch-bed trying to get a little sleep between Mike waking up and crying (you may have noticed it doesn't say anything since the 7pm post about him eating...he hasn't eaten anything since 7pm...ordered him to be NPO in case he needed surgery, and is not a happy camper).

6:30am: First round of people come in to round on him.

9:30am: They take him back down to x-ray to get another abdominal shot to see if there is any of the contrast left in his bowels.

9:45am: The attending shows up tells us he will look at the x-ray and then let us know if we can feed him.

1:00pm: The finally look at the x-ray and decide we can try to feed him a little bit so they start with an ounce of pedialyte. If he can keep it down for 1 hour we will move forward.

2:00pm: No sign of the pedialyte so we give him an ounce of milk.

3:00pm: No sign of the milk so we give him 2 ounces.

3:30pm: The attending comes back and talks to us about what is going on the let's us know that they think they will discharge him.

4:30pm: We are on our way home.

Diagnosis: "Dunno", likely a stomache bug of some sort, or a minor blockage.

Future Plan: If he does it again, contact our pediatrician immediately. Otherwise we have to take him back in a few weeks for some more tests.

High points: Mike decided he knew how to rollover and practiced rolling from his back onto his stomache. He is particularly fond of rolling from his back onto his side and staying that way.

Even baby hospital gowns make your butt hang out, plus it is pink. Brad and I discussed the need for neutral colored baby hospital gowns (it was a long night).

Getting all settled in for the night

Mike practicing rolling over.

Brad and Mike ready to go home.

Mike's new ride

His feet don't quite reach the pedals yet, but otherwise he sure does look good!

This is the car we bought to replace the Prizm. A 2008 Toyota RAV4 (no it is not one of the recalled ones).

Tasty

A Tribute to the Prizm

What can I say about the car that has carried me nearly 120K miles, the car that I maneuvered through multiple Wyoming and Utah winters, the car that has trekked across the country from St. Louis to Wyoming and back numerous times, the car the somehow survived having a high school driver, then a college aged driver?

You may be curious what this post is all about. Yesterday I bought a new car (well new to me anyway). Not really a huge deal, but it marks the end of me driving my little Prizm everyday (yep the same Prizm I had in high school, and college, and when I moved to St. Louis). My dad bought the car for me over Thanksgiving weekend 2000.

The Prizm was amazingly reliable. I honestly put off getting a new car for the past couple of years because I felt there was no point in buying a new one when I had one that worked perfectly well. I put up with MOUNDS of criticism about my "tin can" and "death trap" of a car, but in the end, I'll be lucky if I ever have as good of a car.

Thanks for the ride my little Chevy Prizm.

(as a side note, I did not trade the Prizm in...seriously that car has no value to anyone except me...we still have it and Brad is going to drive it for the time being to keep miles off his truck, then it may make one more trek out west to become my sister's car).

Buddies

Mike has a new best friend, an equally adorable baby that he loves to smile at while mom is getting ready in the morning:

3 months

My little guy is three months old today. I can't believe how fast time is flying by.

The "It's almost warm enough for a BBQ" BBQ

Sunday marked the first bbq of the season. We dubbed it the "It's almost warm enough" BBQ. Much to our surprise it was definitely warm enough with temperatures hitting the mid-60s. Brad fired up his new grill, the beer pong table made its way onto the deck and there were not one, but two babies to coo and giggle at. Can't think of a much better way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Mike all ready for the festivities to start (well I guess he needed socks, but he was otherwise ready).


Snoozing on Rachel.


Katie and Natalie looking lovely in Pink


Anji, Mike and Brad.

Chris and Katie

Boys doing dumb boy things.

Work

I have to go back to being a productive member of the financial world again on Monday and I'm having a hard time with it. I have already broken down in tears once today. Brad keeps trying to tell me it will be ok, but the thought of leaving my little, sweet, precious baby at daycare for 9-10 hours a day just eats me up inside. So to try to make myself feel a tiny bit better I am posting a list of 10 things I like about my job.

1) The paycheck. Duh.

2) I honestly really like most of my coworkers.

3) I get to go on a 2-2.5 mile walk around the St. Louis arch everyday at lunch with my boss.

4) Fruit day. Every Monday and Wednesday the company has fruit stocked in every break room. Its great. They also always have yogurt available for us.

5) I get to talk to adults on a daily basis

6) I am good at what I do and honestly like my job more than I don't like my job.

7) The paycheck. Shucks, I already said that...ummm....ok, the annual bonus ;)

8) My cubicle. Yeah, maybe this is a weird one, but it is my little space. I keep it tidy because I like it that way and have pictures of my family to cheer me up, so yep I like my cubicle.

9) The free box tickets I occasionally get to Cardinals and Blues games.

10) Getting to learn new things. Maybe a bit cheesy sounding, but I like learning about the developments that are occurring in financial reporting and how they affect my company. Since I work for a Fortune 500 company that is considered an accelerated filer, we are always in the first group to have to submit new types of filings. It keeps me on my toes.

With all of those things I still get teary-eyed when I think about leaving this little guy on Monday morning.

Illusive

I imagine anyone who has kids knows how illusive those first laughs are. As I explained in an earlier post, Mike had his first laugh about a week ago at the doctor's office. Since then I have been trying to figure out how to coax it out of him. Things I've learned: 1) he likes his ribs tickled, but only sometimes, if he isn't in the mood, he cries instead of laughing; 2) he can go from laughing to crying in about 1.5 seconds...babies are weird; 3) He likes it when you press on his gums...which is exactly how I was able to get the gem below:

Baby Capri Pants

Yesterday during a necessary mid-day clothing change (aka blowout) Brad grabbed a fleece romper to put on Mike. It didn't quite fit anymore. It barely came down past his knees and barely snapped over his diaper. Brad's comment: "look, he has baby capri pants," and to Mike "don't worry, chicks dig that." The romper (and the 2 others just like it in red and white) are now in the "too small" box.