Dash is by far my most smiley kid. But it isn’t hard to be the frontrunner since Scout and Navy never smiled. But this guy smiles like crazy in the mornings, and is pretty happy the rest of the day also.
And his smile is so darling. It is usually a half smile, and open mouthed.
And this is the beginning of a full-mouthed smile.
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I love a smiley baby. I love that he sees me in the morning, and grins immediately. I love that this boy is happy and sweet. But mostly, I just love this boy.
With Scout’s new, particularly hard outfit, we have to come up with a lot of things to do. We have explored movies, learning to read, board games, Legos, toys, crafts, magic tricks, coloring, more Legos, and the list goes on and on and on.
But his favorites are:
Hanging with Dash.
Playing with Icka.
And playing with Legos (while listening to stories).
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So far, so good.
But remember — it is only week one!
We got a box in the mail, and Seth and his family (let’s be honest — Brett) did the twelve days of Christmas for the California family. Not only was every bx wrapped unbelievably well, with the nicest and prettiest paper, but every gift has been SO creative and thoughtful. It was like she has remembered everything each of us has said over the past years and made sure to include them in our treats.
When Tristen opened day 5, and got these “CTR” rings that she has been eying over the past year, she started to cry. She just kept saying, “She is so nice. I have loved these forever, and she got them for me!” It has been so fun to ring in the holidays with her gifts. Scout and Navy have had fun opening them too. Amongst many other gifts, we got a darling Frosty The Snowman book that each of their kids read to us. It will be in our Christmas book collection forever, and I love it!
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Thanks cousins — and mostly a perfect sister-in-law!
There is just something about this boy that has made me fall in love! I guess the third time around, you can really appreciate a baby who is sweet, nice, quiet and adores his mom. I have proof that they grow up, but I am really trying to savor every moment with this little guy. To prove it, I haven’t even considered letting him cry it out to sleep through the night. Even though it exhausts me, I like having a little special date with him two times in the night. And I will admit, he is a bit of calm to me at the moment.
This is a scene that no parent EVER wants to see.
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Our little family went to the park Saturday morning. While there, Scout was getting pushed on the swing. After going “higher, higher” he was towards the top when he had to cough. My sweet and polite boy who is so good at following directions, took his hand off the swing to cough into the crook of his elbow. The results were disastrous as I watched my boy do the most beautiful and frightening cartwheel/twist in the air. Without me even knowing it, I heard a gut wrenching yell come from my mouth as I was up and running to him. He landed, put up his head in shock, and just started bawling. As a mom, I knew the bawl, and knew that something was wrong. I had Micah take his jeans off, and as Micah was feeling down his leg, he looked up at me and mouthed, “it’s broken”. We immediately got everyone in the car and headed to the hospital as I cradled Scout in my arms in the back seat. He was in tremendous pain, but as I sang to him, he was able to control his tears. I grabbed my phone. Trilby was taking Dash. Tristen was on her way to get Navy. I couldn’t find Carruthy’s home number, but had others working on it. At the emergency room, we got him out through the trunk and then they put us in a wheelchair to roll us in. They immediately cleared room 40 and asked us questions. The first being, “when was the last time he ate?” I immediately knew they were talking surgery, and asked them if femur breaks usually required it. The answer was yes. So off to room 40 we went. Within minutes, Tristen was there to take our other two, and then we were in for the long haul of the E.R. After I became the squeaky wheel, he finally got on some morphine for the pain. Thank goodness! He was a lot more comfortable then. After XRays (which Micah said were horrendous as they had to stretch his bad leg) and an orthopedist’s assessment, we knew the plan of attack was resetting the leg and putting him in a body cast. Luckily young kids heal so well, that surgery isn’t usually necessary. So after my mom arrived with half of the Lego’s store, and the doctor worked his magic on Scout, we headed to CHOC’s pediatric unit on floor 5. (You know — my stomping grounds! Where I spent most of my time in late October and early November.) The good news, I was already on a first name basis with many of the nurses!
This poor boy had a rough go for the first 24 hours. (One bright little spot was when he realized the Chippie, our Elf on the Shelf visited him in the hospital!) Back to the rough first day. At the end of day one, he was given Vicoden, and had an allergic reaction. I was with him throughout the night, and he was screaming that he was itching and burning about every three minutes. I remained calm up until five in the morning when he had gone through an entire night of hell, and then as I looked at him and he cried to me saying, “Mom, I am so itchy, why won’t it go away?” At that point, I got big tears in my eyes, and said, I don’t know, but I promise I will stay with you until it does. Amongst the night drama, there was telling a nurse three times that my boy wasn’t complaining about itching because of “having a new cast” or “seasonal allergies” but that it was an allergic reaction, insisting the doctor come in and do something about it, threatening to call 911 if I didn’t get immediate reactions, and finally having the doctor come in and see I was right and immediately give him Benadryl and steroids.
I learned long ago that being polite in the hospital is a stupid choice. So instead I opt for the very pushy mother route. I know it is obnoxious. And it really isn’t my style. But in a situation where it means comfort or hell for my loved ones — I don’t really care.
By the next morning, he was feeling a ton better. His swelling had minimized, and he had a really fun visitor who brought him some awesome magic tricks. In fact, as we were driving to the hospital, he said through sobs, “I want my Bella to come and cuddle me!” She dies over that! She also dies over his cast being red. And one of his three reasons was that it was Bella’s favorite color! (The other two — it is a Christmas color, and it is his and Riley’s favorite color!) The nurse said they always did these casts in white, but I told her it was the only thing he was looking forward to, and they gave in! I am so glad they did, because his “Santa Suit” is rather handsome!
After church, Icka came and made her very own hospital bed on the couch I had slept on the night before.
Some more visitors stopped by. I love that Royal was scared of Scout in his cast!
He was in the best mood seeing as he hadn’t slept for more than an hour the night before!
He said some priceless things during his first few days. One of the cutest was when he said to me, “Mom, do you think when dad comes to visit me at night, sometimes he could bring Icka so I could cuddle her?” I melted, because he thought he was going to be in the hospital for a long time like Dash was. When I told him he was only going to be in the hospital one night, he said, “Well, could I cuddle her at home?” Pretty sweet.
Look at the love!
He continued to have visitors throughout the days, and is loving the attention!
But is loving the constant gifts even more. I am scared for how anticlimactic Christmas is going to be after these last few days!
After about 36 hours in the hospital, we were heading out. Here is the nurse taking out the IV, and we all were thrilled. Especially Scout who had been told that if he ate a good dinner, the doctors would let him go home. Well, before he had swallowed the last bite, he was crank calling the nurses station and saying, “You told me I could go home after I ate a good dinner, and nobody is here. I have been waiting 35 minutes!” He was hysterical. The nurses all loved him!
But moments after pulling the IV, he had another allergic reaction. It was much milder, but still scary. He was coughing and dry heaving for about 10 minutes. You can see in the picture that his eyes are already swollen. the doctor didn’t think it was smart to send him home, and made us stay another night. I thought it was a “better safe than sorry” situation, and was happy to stay.
The good news — I slept in his same bed, and he ended up having a great night — so we both finally got some sleep! Although we woke up for a chocolate milk party, and an apple juice party three hours later!
When we did finally get home, Nonnie had two beanbags at the house within a few hours. And his favorite visitors of all — the Brockbanks were there to humor him all afternoon long. Here he is, and I quote, “Are you ready to be amazed?!” Obviously he was feeling better!
Nonstop fun led to utter exhaustion! He was wiped by night time, and went straight to bed. Unfortunately, he had a rough night, but we got through it. And since then, things have only gotten better!
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We have SO much to be grateful for. Good friends and family, good doctors, and ONLY a broken leg.
This is Dash’s first shower.
This boy is a major fan of the warm water, but screams bloody murder the second I undress him or uncover him from the towel and try to put lotion on him. I actually think the poor guy doesn’t like to be undressed, because for so long, he was poked and prodded every time I took his clothes off.
When I asked Scout to get Dash a blanket because he was cold, this is what I found. Six blankets later, I got down to my sweet baby’s face — pink cheeks and all.
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I guess this is better than Navy’s recent obsession with helping. I turned to see her the other day carrying him from his chair to the couch. I’ll admit that she had him cradled in her arms pretty good. But the next day when I heard him crying, and I went in to the next room to see what the matter was, Navy said, “I was carrying him to you, but he was too heavy.” And there he laid on the floor — about ten feet from the bed he was on. Needless to say, I don’t leave him alone with her anymore.
Our primary Christmas party was at our house this year. It was a “Polar Express” p.j.’s party, and they came to write Santa letters, eat donuts, sing carols, play “Santa Says”, listen to a reading of The Polar Express, and see Santa.
Things started off good. Look at my boy belting out that carol!
Then during “Santa Says”, Santa said to smile. Queen opposite did anything but smile, and Scout just had a minor itch.
Things went downhill when Nonnie started reading and Icka got reckless. Notice my girl is the only naughty who thought break dancing was a good idea at that moment.
But I started to catch on that she just wanted everyone around to know that they were in HER house. Look at her climbing Nonnie’s chair.
So I gave her the idea of playing princess dress up on the second floor. She was game, and got her nursery cohort in crime to go with her.
But she was back to see Santa. She and Scout both were stoked to talk to Santa, but Navy thought he was there to see her, and her only! And basically that they are best friends.
And she wanted everyone to know it, as she climbed all over his chair.
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