I'm Back!

Spring Break is over, Colin is back at school, I made it to the grocery store and now I am going to update the blog. I should be cleaning the house and doing laundry. "Should" is the key word there.

A LOT has happened since my last post, most of which involves me being sick. At the beginning of March, I came down with the worst illness that I have ever had. It took me 3 full days before I realized that things were really bad and I finally went to the ER. After lots of tests, I finally found out that I had colitis, an infection of the colon. I got IV fluids, pain meds, anti-nausea meds and two antibiotics that made me really feel like death. That was tough...I had to take them 3 times a day for 14 days, despite the fact that they made me sick as a dog. I won't lie, there were a few days there when I thought that something might be really wrong. It was the first time in my life that I felt what it was like to have a "long term" type illness that doesn't get any better. It made me very thankful for my health and very sad for those that battle disease on a daily basis. I ended up back at the doctor with my vision failing and hardly able to function. I was dehydrated, all my veins had collapsed because of it, and I had to sit for 3 hours with a tiny butterfly IV that they finally managed to get in the top of my hand. That was the low point, but about 5 days later, I was much better. THANK GOD! I was sick for 15 days and now, two weeks after the low point, I am still not 100%, but close to it. My stomach is still upset more than it should be and I don't eat a whole lot. But that, I can handle. :-) I have another appointment with a digestive health doctor next week and will hopefully know more then. I am back to being happy, functioning in society, and overall feeling good. And I am saying a little prayer that I NEVER have to take those damn meds again! Whew!

During this long time of illness, Colin was amazing. We didn't go anywhere and he basically spent 3 weeks entertaining himself while I whimpered on the couch that I couldn't play. NOT fun. He was a rock star and really took care of me. He knew that I was sick and did things on his own that he never would have normally. He even had to go with me to the doctors office that day and played quietly for the whole 3 hours! The nurses brought him snacks and even apples and grapes from their own lunches because I couldn't leave without the IV fluids. They were so great and I am beyond thankful for the whole office! Thank you, Dr. Buffington! Colin really showed me how wonderful he is and what a helpful boy he is growing up to be. I was also reminded that I am blessed with the best friends that anyone could ever have. All of my friends were so worried and all offered to bring dinner and take care of Colin. We had an outpouring of prayers and love from everyone!

Finally, the fog of sickness has cleared and we are enjoying the WONDERFUL Texas springtime! The weather is beautiful, and we are spending lots of time outside. We had a fun park playdate for St. Patrick's Day, an afternoon at our friend Heather's house and a fantastic Friday lunch at a Mexican place with an attached playground for the kids! That place was awesome...the ability to sit and enjoy lunch while your kids play is priceless! I actually ended up with a bit of a sunburn that afternoon and it felt GREAT! It feels great to be back in the land of the living! :-) There will be more posts to come very shortly with Colin updates and pictures! He started his first ever team...Blastball!

The Latest From Colin

Colin is so...well...Colin. I find him to be hysterical and brilliant and pretty adorable. Have I mentioned that before? ;-) He is such an interesting boy. We have been going to Occupational Therapy (OT) every Friday for several weeks now and he LOVES IT. On our second session, he struck up a conversation with one of the therapists who was waiting for her meal at the microwave. He asked her what her job there was, if she played with kids like Miss Cheryl, if she was a mom, if she liked knock knock jokes and then proceeded to ask her if they had recently vacuumed the floor. It was so funny and she was, of course, immediately in love with him. Cheryl (our OT) ended up telling me yesterday that everyone in the office thinks that Colin is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Nobody wins people over like Colin. He has had a lot of awesome things to say lately...in fact, Miss Cheryl spends most of the therapy hour looking up at me over Colin's head with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. He does say some pretty over the top things for a 3 year old, but I am used to it and really have nothing to compare it against. She looked shocked so many times on Friday that I actually started giggling. Here are a couple of his most recent additions to the conversation. I want to write them down so that I don't forget what a funny little 3 year old he was!

"Mommy, teachers are community helpers. They are there to help you learn. I already know everything, so I don't need to go back to school."

*he asked me yesterday if I knew where his pieces of chalk went. I told him that I didn't know and his response was, "Well, they didn't just get up and walk off!" Now, where on earth did he learn that?!

He really does make us laugh constantly these days. We had a moment last night that was just too sweet, and a bit sad...but mostly super cute! He asked to watch "Angelina Ballerina" after seeing several commercials for it on various DVD's that we have. We stream Netflix onto our television and I saw they had it. I turned it on for him last night and he LOVED IT. However, at the end of the hour, he burst into tears. Real tears, heavy crying, chest heaving and shuddering...the whole nine yards. We were immediately hovering over him asking what happened - I assumed he had hurt himself! He finally managed to choke out, "I want to dance ballet, but I am a boy! Boys can't dance ballet, but I really want to! I am not a girl, so I can't dance ballet!" ...all the while crying his little eyes out. I assured him over and over that if he wanted to take ballet, then he could absolutely do it! We had a very long conversation about how boys can be great dancers and that he would win over every little girl on earth if he danced. Oh my goodness, he was so upset! I had to promise him over and over again that if he wanted to take a dance class that he absolutely could and that I would go with him. It was not exactly a conversation that I pictured myself having, but I am totally okay with that. I have a lot of conversations with Colin that I never imagined I would. ;-)

In related news, after some research today, a big dance studio here offers boys only classes! How cool is that!? Things have totally changed since I was little! The boys program starts at age 5, so if Colin does decide that he wants to take classes this fall, he will still be mixed in with the girls (which I think he will love, anyway), but after that, he would have his own special program. Apparently, it is very popular and there are lots of boys in the program! Regardless, as far as I am concerned, Colin can do whatever makes him happy. Besides, can you imagine how many girls would swoon over a boy who can dance?! And why can I only picture Kent from last season of SYTYCD? :-)

Valentine's Day and Tyler

First of all, the Valentine's party last Thursday was everything I hoped it would be. :-) I arrived a bit early and just happened to catch Colin's class walking around the hallways looking for the letters "R" and "S". Miss Gina was leading them and they were all walking together so nicely and calling out letters when they saw them. Colin was at the front of the line with McKenna, which was a common theme during the afternoon. I hung back and watched and he was being so polite and sweet. I long to be a fly on the wall to watch Colin interact in school, so it was fun to walk in on this little bit of his day. When the kids got back to the classroom, they all lined up against the wall and got their Valentine holders all ready to go. Each child got to hand out his own Valentines with Miss Gina and it was just the cutest process ever. I loved how Colin knew every single child by name when the teachers told him who to take each card to. Obviously he would know everyone, but seeing Colin have this life outside of what I do with him still overwhelms me. He sat by McKenna the entire time and this is the same girl who he came home talking about on the first day. He clearly adores her and the feeling is mutual. They were inseparable the entire time. Colin had to have at least some part of his body touching her and I was melting from the sweetness. They even sat by each other during the snack afterwards! McKenna had to have heart surgery (!) in October and missed a month of school. Colin talked non-stop about where she was, who was operating on her, how long it would take her to come back and everything in between. If you ask Colin who his best girl friend is, he will alternate between saying "McKenna" and "Mallory". I find this dynamic to also be so cute...Colin loves Mallory, but she does not appear to even know he exists. She is very cute, but Colin didn't go near her the entire time. I think McKenna is the girl next door and Mallory is the heartbreaker who is already intimidating him. I hope he figures out that the McKenna's of this world are the ones he needs to stick with! ;-)

McKenna is in the pink shirt next to Colin in the solid red. They seriously did not leave each others side!

The kiddos having their V-day snacks. McKenna is on the end by Colin (looking at the camera)

Colin saying his prayer...SO cute! That is his best friend Keaton beside him.

Colin and McKenna during the Valentine party

Taking a turn handing out Valentines with Miss Gina

That is Mallory handing Colin a Valentine. She is the heartbreaker. LOL!

Showing me his little delivery box!

I love this one...Colin is sneaking a peek at his friend Presley's stuff!

On Friday, we went to Tyler for "the birthdays". My sisters turned 30 on the 8th, my mom's big day was Saturday and my dad is today. Jer's is the 21st and my bro-in-law is the 28th, so February is a bit packed! We were supposed to go the weekend before, but the ice-pocalypse ruined that plan. We had dinner on Friday night at Bruno's (as usual) and then had the official birthday dinner at El Chico on Saturday. We all drank Mexican martinis and ate a ton of food. Colin was a bit off his game on this trip...he was really worn out. He actually crawled in my lap at El Chico and slept for the entire dinner. It was INSANE. This trip was a lot of fun because my niece Pryce seemed to really grow since I saw her at Christmas. Colin loves her SOOO much and is constantly hugging her and asking to "give her a pet" on her head. He has always been this way with her, but this trip she started giving it back! She walked up to Colin on several occasions and wrapped her chubby baby arms around him...he was over the moon about it and of course, I loved it more than words can say!

All in all, we had a great and VERY busy week. The weather is amazing at the moment and I am currently wearing shorts and a t-shirt and so is Colin. LOVE IT! I can't believe it is already time to go buy new t-shirts...his short sleeves and shorts from last summer are way too small. I will leave this post with two shots of Colin and his cousin Pryce from over the weekend! SO CUTE!

He LOVES HER!

Winter DRAGS ON!

To avoid sounding like a broken record, I won't begin this post by discussing how long it has been since my last post. ;-) It has basically been snowing since I wrote last. That is only a slight exaggeration. Last week, we were stuck in our house for 4 solid days. It was miserable! The ice storm hit on Monday night and the temps didn't pull above 20 degrees all week. You could literally ice skate down our block. The school district was closed for a record 4 days in a row and we couldn't make it out of the house. Jer did manage to get to work each day, but it took him hours to drive the 25 miles to DFW. It was a nightmare! The Super Bowl was here last weekend and I am convinced that every sand truck was sent to Dallas for the tourists. It seemed so strange that none of the roads or highways were cleared...even the busiest of roads remained impassible all week long. It iced again yesterday morning, but nothing like last week and it looks like we will FINALLY warm up this weekend! Thank heavens...I need to get out of this house and stop cooking!

Which brings me to my next topic...I need to seek help for my cooking issues. I can't stop! I was doing better, but with all the snow and being stuck in the house, I am back to cooking like crazy. I made braised pork ribs and polenta, chicken pot pie, chili, cornbread, from scratch banana pudding, loaded oatmeal cookies, pot roast and mashed potatoes...that is just what I can remember off the top of my head from the last couple of weeks. I love to cook so much, but I have to get back to my chicken breasts or I won't be ready for a bathing suit! ;-) In all fairness to me, I started delivering all the sweets to my two pregnant neighbors. They are starting to get mad that I am fattening them up, but it lets me keep cooking if I don't eat the whole batch myself! :-) I am dusting off my cooking light recipes as we speak. Seriously. I mean it this time. Really. Probably. More or less.

Colin is now obsessed with space. I love it when I see his interests grow and change and now he is consumed with the planets. He talks about them ALL the time and loves to ask the most random questions that I have no idea how to answer. Last week, he woke up one morning and asked me immediately how big Saturn was. When I could not exactly answer that, he ordered me to get his "space book" and also look up how big Earth and Venus are. It was so adorable. While playing fireman last night, he randomly looked up and said, "Mommy, did you know that Neptune is a stormy planet?"...I went and got the space book myself at that point and sure enough, there was a line about Neptune having very high winds. I purchased the "Twilight Turtle" nightlight for Colin a couple of weeks ago and he LOVES it. It is a plush turtle whose back projects stars and the moon around the room when you turn it on. Colin named him "Bustard" and we spend quite awhile looking at the stars now when we go to bed. I am enjoying the switch to space...it is nice to play something other than fireman. :-)

Today is Colin's Valentine's party at school and I MAY have gotten a little out of control with said valentines. I loved Valentine's Day at school when I was little. It seems odd, being such a silly little holiday, but making the boxes and then having all your friends (even the boys!) deliver cards to you...I just thought it was the greatest thing ever. I loved the cupcakes and cookies and most especially, I loved carefully sorting through all the cards to see what each person gave me. I remember paying close attention to which cards each boy gave me and if it meant that my favorite boy "liked" me. HA!! I was serious about choosing which cards went to which friend and I worked really hard to make them beautiful. In high school, you could buy a flower and have it delivered to someone during homeroom. I think it was a fundraiser for the Student Senate, but regardless, it was awesome. I would wait on the edge of my seat every year to see if someone sent me a flower. It was usually just my mom, but still. ;-) SOOO, needless to say, I was super excited to find out that Colin has having his first Valentine's Day party. I put together little gift bags with a card, plastic dinosaur, kazoo, notebook and candy. I made little name cards to go in each one and even added some glitter. I honestly had a blast making them! I also picked the cutest cards for Colin's best friend and best girlfriend. hehehe!

Finally, here are a couple of pictures from our trip to the botanic gardens in Fort Worth. We went with some of our friends the weekend before the "Ice-pocalypse" and it seems crazy that it was 80 degrees that day. Texas weather is crazy! Colin and Hayden were so adorable...I am looking forward to this weekend so that we can get outside again!!

My Cherub

The flu chronicles continue with a glimpse into my day...

It is about 5:30pm. I went to the kitchen to work on dinner and Colin begged to lay in the living room. He had been tucked away in my bed all day, with the exception of the trip to the pediatrician. I promptly agreed and made him a very cozy bed on the couch, complete with pillows and blankets and his train table pulled up next to him for placement of Kleenex box and juice. I made dinner and he watched "The Fresh Beat Band". I made him spaghetti, which he couldn't bring himself to eat. I made myself a bowl of pasta and sat down on the end of the couch with him. He is a mess today...his hair, which is getting too long, is rumpled and messy; he is wearing his car pajama shirt from last night and a pair of firetruck underwear. His little face is so pale and his eyes are big and glassy. They are rimmed with pink circles and his nose is red on the end from wiping it. His lashes, which are so long and full that I ache with jealousy over them, seem dark and heavy and are damp on the ends from his eyes watering. His lips are slightly chapped and therefore look rather rosy. He is leaning against his pillows and looks like a sick little cherub sitting there, all tired and feeling icky. All I can think when I stare at him is how adorable he is and how big and tiny he seems to be all at the same time. He then said, "Mommy, tell me about candy. I love popsicles and suckers. Are both of those candy?". I told him that popsicles didn't generally count in the candy category, although I could see where that would be confusing. He then asked me to name various other examples of candy. I start to name a few (Snickers...Twix...Skittles) and as I talk, he pulls his knees up and props his right elbow on one. He then rests the side of his precious face against his palm and sighs as he listens. He asks me several questions from that position, including inquiries into all the candy bars that have nuts because "I really don't like nuts" and then, in a fast moving topic change, why carnivals and fairs are not always in town. For some reason, this whole little moment was so cute and wonderful and sweet that I decided to write it down immediately. He looked so forlorn and sick, but so unwittingly adorable at the same time. He likes it when I sit down and just listen to him. He actually sighed when I devoted my attention to a discussion of candy. He chimed in frequently with things like, "What other kinds are there, Mama? " and "What is your favorite candy?". I love him so much. I do. I'm just saying. :-)

A Mom at Midnight

He is sick. The doctor says it is a light case of the flu, but I think the phrase "light case" was thrown in to make me feel better about the fact that Colin got the mist vaccine instead of the shot. Apparently kids who had the mist this year are still catching the flu...at least more than the kids who got the shot. I will remember this next year. Hopefully.

He has had three very long days and two sleepless nights and overall just a horrible no good very bad week. We are both so tired, my boy and I. I slept in his bed during the first night and he ended up in our bed last night, during a disaster of a midnight fever spike. The poor baby was in hysterics and literally burning up with fever. I finally got him moved to my bed, but he passed out right where I laid him, which left me just about 6 inches of mattress space. I should have climbed up into the bed and tucked myself in the very center. At the time, Enzo was splayed out down the middle of the bed with his head on the pillow right next to my husband. A rational woman would have kicked her dog to the curb and settled into slumber. I, however, did not even think about the huge open softness of the middle of the bed, or of my snoring slumbering fat dog or even of my 6 tiny inches of mattress. Instead, I precariously positioned myself on the sliver of remaining bed by my nightstand and laid my head down so close to Colin's that I could feel his coughs on my cheeks. I tucked the edge of the covers around my calves and proceeded to think "my baby. fever. too high. emergency room? don't be insane. 1am. breathing too hard? cough too deep? emergency room? don't be that mom. go to sleep. sleep. do it. no school tomorrow. call teachers. not now. 1am. he is too hot. emergency room? crazy person." I finally fall asleep, but wake up seemingly every few minutes to the sounds of coughing and the feel of hot baby skin pressed up to me somewhere. I shifted around on my tiny island of space and waited impatiently for the sun to finally put an end to the night. The morning will make it better. We can watch cartoons and make coffee. We can turn all the lights on and I can tuck him into the middle of my bed with a box of Kleenex and apple juice and pop tarts. Mornings are better for moms. Coughs and fevers are much worse at 2am.

A Mid-January List of Ramblings

It's January. It's cold. It snowed. For some reason, this puts me in the mood for a random list of information in no specific order. So here we go!

1. We finally FINALLY came up on the waitlist for the pediatric occupational therapy group and had our first appointment, which was part of the long evaluation process, last Monday. We were there for hours and won't get the official results until we go back this Friday. Colin was absolutely wonderful through the whole process and was his usual sweet self. He acted very true to form and I felt like the therapist got a good representation of him from our visit. She kept saying randomly that he was "so extremely sweet" and things like "I don't think I have ever met a sweeter child", which was nice. While I don't have a lot of details, I know he qualifies for services because the therapist asked us to go ahead and make a weekly standing appointment. She also jumped right in and offered good practical tips for helping Colin with some of his sensitivities and offered insight into some of the things he does. It was a great visit and I am anxious for Friday so that we can see what a therapy visit is like, as well as find out the results from the testing. She pointed out a couple of things that I had not noticed at all, like the fact that he does not use his pincer grasp, but instead uses his thumb and middle finger to pick things up and move them. She said that part of therapy will involve strengthening the muscles needed to use his pincer grasp properly, which will help him learn to hold a writing utensil as well as silverware with more ease. He has struggled with holding forks and spoons and rarely takes more than 2 bites with them, but I had no clue that there could be a problem. So already, I am extremely thankful that we went. We also learned a very interesting tidbit of information while we were there. At one point toward the end of testing, the therapist kept giving Colin all sorts of things to pick up and put in a little container. She did it over and over again and then had him draw a picture for her twice. She then went back to the small objects and then held one of his hands down and watched him pick things up with the available hand. I had no clue what she was doing until she looked back at us and announced, "For the first time, I am truly stumped!" and went on to explain that Colin does not favor either hand over the other. It looks like he is completely ambidextrous! She said that she tried everything and could not get him to favor a side. He split everything evenly over both sides of his body and when she held down his left hand, he would use the right hand, but still cross over the left side of his body to put it in that bin. She had apparently never seen anything like it. Interesting stuff for sure! Apparently, this is very rare and ambidextrous kids have a hard time learning to write because they frequently switch back and forth, sometimes even mid-sentence. So crazy! I gave Colin mac and cheese for lunch today and asked him to practice eating with his spoon for me. He switched the spoon from hand to hand almost every other bite. I had noticed him doing that before and we could never figure out his preference. Jeremy is pretty much ambidextrous, so I don't know why I was shocked. He writes with his left hand, but throws, bats and shoots with his right. I think it must be the mark of a genius...my two brilliant boys. :-)

2. We threw away pull-ups a couple of weeks ago and haven't looked back. Colin has been FULLY trained at school since the day it started back in September. Home, however, was a different story. I have tried very hard not to push him and take it one day at a time. I also could not get him to wear underwear because he didn't like the different feel of them, which is just a typical sensory thing. I got his teachers in on things and they told him that they really wanted to see Colin in regular underwear when he came back from Christmas. So we finished the pull-ups and then he agreed to wear underwear to school, simply because he didn't want to disappoint his teachers. It worked like a charm! :-) We have not looked back since, but he does have lots of accidents at home. I have to remind him to stop what he is doing to go, which works fine, but if I forget to tell him, he forgets to go! He absolutely does not have accidents outside the house or at school, so I am hoping that he soon starts remembering on his own here. He has also not wet the bed once and wakes up completely dry every morning. So I know he is ready and the home problem is one of conditioning. Colin being Colin, whenever he has an accident, he erupts into tears and begins saying, "Mommy, are you mad or sad? Please don't be mad or sad! I am so sorry!". That breaks my heart! I have never EVER shown a bit of anger or even frustration when he has an accident, but regardless, he is still so worried about it.

3. Colin looked at me yesterday and said, "Mom, would it be cool to open a restaurant in a dog park so that if people get hungry, they can eat while their dogs play?". I told him that was actually a very good idea. This represents yet another moment when I reflected internally on how much smarter Colin is than yours truly.

4. Colin asked me what made our heads hard. I told him that a skull is a big bone that protects the brain and it is very hard. He said, "I wish that we could go somewhere and get an x-ray of our skulls so that we could look at our brains. And Enzo's." He went on to ask me to tell him the name of every bone in our body. I told him that he would have to google that one.

5. I got a NookColor for Christmas and Colin loves it. LOVES IT. I left it where he could reach it a couple of days ago, and he managed to turn it on, close the book I was reading, go to the home page and choose a childrens book and start it. Without me showing him how at all. I really wish we had an I-Pad because Colin has a hard time using the computer mouse (now I know why!), but give that kid a touch screen and he can figure out anything. He got his own reader for Christmas that uses the same touch technology and he adores it.

6. I have been a very bad girl this week. We had a cold front blow through here a couple of nights ago and it brought snow, ice and freezing temps. I took this to mean that I needed to cook chili and cornbread, pot roast and mashed potatoes with fresh rolls, potato leek soup (currently on the stove) and broccoli soup with homemade croutons (for tomorrow). CLEARLY, this is not a good diet week for Chalna. In my defense, I have been eating Special K and blueberries for breakfast and light lunches. However, my next trip to the grocery store will not include heavy cream. I refuse to gain back the weight that I tried so hard to lose. I only gained 4 lbs over the entire holiday season, which is pretty good for me, but those 4 lbs are going away! This week notwithstanding, of course. ;-)

7. Colin has taken to watching "A Baby Story" and "Make Room for Multiples" on TLC. This happened by accident one morning a few days ago when Jer turned the TV on. Colin saw a baby and asked him not to change the channel. I walked in several minutes later to find Colin watching a woman give birth. Granted, this is TLC, so they don't show too much, but it was the real deal. He started asking me questions, so I sat down and watched with him and answered as much as I could. I was shocked that he watched the whole show. The next show was about the multiples, which he asked to watch, too. That lady had a c-section, which I tried to turn off, but Colin went nuts and begged me to keep it on. I explained what the doctors were doing and that sometimes the doctors have to do surgery to help a baby be born. He didn't even flinch while watching and stayed glued to his seat for the entire half hour, which was mostly about the family being home with multiple newborns and taking care of them. We have watched both shows several mornings since and he adores them, c-sections and all. Heavens!

8. Back to my most prized possession...the NookColor. I can't stop reading. I literally can't. This present was like buying an alcoholic a bottle of vodka for Christmas. I am out of control. I have been averaging one book every 3 days, on top of all my magazines. I have had this problem my whole life, but the Nook takes it to a whole new level. I learned to read when I was 3, partially because of my brilliant mother and mostly because I was born a reading genius. I can say that without sounding like an ass because I am also math illiterate. Seriously. I still use my fingers to count. Anyway, I have always had an obsession with reading and the Nook is blowing my mind. As I am reading, if I see a word that I don't know, I just tap on it and I can have the definition and background pulled up right in front of me. I. LOVE. THIS. THING. Go get one. You MUST...even if you aren't a lunatic like me.