Sunday, April 19, 2015

February


February brought Valentines Day and Heart Week/Month into our lives. Of course we always wear red in honor of Blaise on Heart Day. We are so thankful to all of those people in our lives who also wore red in honor of him and remembered him and brought awareness to heart disease. We attended the Midwest Heart Connection Heart Banquet again this year, along with both sets of grandparents. It’s a fun night to honor and celebrate our miracle boy Blaise. I’ts nice to catch up with parents of other kids with heart defects, especially those the same as Blaise so we can compare notes and be ready for the next surgery and what to expect.

Blaise is currently learning his ABC, and has finally started enjoying repeating them after me. Once in awhile he goes on a run where he can do quite a few letters on his own in a row. We are working pretty hard on his colors and he knows a few like blue, orange and black. He does pretty decent. We got to go to another couples shower with both kids for Uncle Adam and Aunt Shelly.

I was brave and took both kids with me by myself shopping for clothes to wear to the wedding on my day of in February. It was an adventure! We started at Von Maur and they didn’t do too bad. The funniest part was trying to nurse Sutton in a dressing room when Blaise threw the door open and everyone in the hallway stared in. He also decided he had to go potty, so I had to stop nursing Sutton, get dressed, leave the clothes in room and haul up to the third floor. He managed to have a few potty accidents and finally when we were at Dillards I put one of Sutton’s diapers on him because I didn’t have time to leave the fitting room again and get to a restroom. All in all, the kids did absolutely wonderful!

Blaise and Sutton got to see their cousins from Aberdeen come and visit in February. It was so much fun having all of the grandkids together! Blaise just loves playing with them so much, and Sutton had such a great time watching the kids run around and play. I could tell she was really wanting to join them. Soon after their visit, she really started rolling around more- both directions and across the room. She is also conquering the sitting thing. She can be let go of for long times while sitting, but I haven’t totally left her alone sitting yet.

Sutton is eating some baby puffs. She does decent with them. Her faces are funny and she is still trying to figure it out- but she is by far leaps and bounds ahead of where Blaise was with table food at this point. Wahoo-hopefully one less stress in my life. Dinners have become quite interesting and busy. I’ve learned that Blaise actually will eat pretty good if you feed it to him. Now, most other parents would never spoon feed their 3 year old, but with this teeny-tiny kid I’ll do whatever it takes. Since Mike is always gone, I usually give Sutton a bite, Blaise a bite, then myself a bite. Most often, my food is cold and I shovel in a few bites when everyone else is done.

We also took Blaise to see the circus in February. It was enjoyable, a little long and during nap time, but he loved seeing the puppies, riding on an elephant and the funny clowns.

Sutton is still just a terrible sleeper. Her average is getting up once around 1:30- I’ll go in and give her a pacifier and then at 3:30 she wants to eat. Sometimes at 6 another pacifier. That’s a good night, there are some nights where she is up every hour. I’m really hoping this improves.

February brought Valentines Day and Heart Week/Month into our lives. Of course we always wear red in honor of Blaise on Heart Day. We are so thankful to all of those people in our lives who also wore red in honor of him and remembered him and brought awareness to heart disease. We attended the Midwest Heart Connection Heart Banquet again this year, along with both sets of grandparents. It’s a fun night to honor and celebrate our miracle boy Blaise. I’ts nice to catch up with parents of other kids with heart defects, especially those the same as Blaise so we can compare notes and be ready for the next surgery and what to expect.

Blaise is currently learning his ABC, and has finally started enjoying repeating them after me. Once in awhile he goes on a run where he can do quite a few letters on his own in a row. We are working pretty hard on his colors and he knows a few like blue, orange and black. He does pretty decent. We got to go to another couples shower with both kids for Uncle Adam and Aunt Shelly.

I was brave and took both kids with me by myself shopping for clothes to wear to the wedding on my day of in February. It was an adventure! We started at Von Maur and they didn’t do too bad. The funniest part was trying to nurse Sutton in a dressing room when Blaise threw the door open and everyone in the hallway stared in. He also decided he had to go potty, so I had to stop nursing Sutton, get dressed, leave the clothes in room and haul up to the third floor. He managed to have a few potty accidents and finally when we were at Dillards I put one of Sutton’s diapers on him because I didn’t have time to leave the fitting room again and get to a restroom. All in all, the kids did absolutely wonderful!

Blaise and Sutton got to see their cousins from Aberdeen come and visit in February. It was so much fun having all of the grandkids together! Blaise just loves playing with them so much, and Sutton had such a great time watching the kids run around and play. I could tell she was really wanting to join them. Soon after their visit, she really started rolling around more- both directions and across the room. She is also conquering the sitting thing. She can be let go of for long times while sitting, but I haven’t totally left her alone sitting yet.

Sutton is eating some baby puffs. She does decent with them. Her faces are funny and she is still trying to figure it out- but she is by far leaps and bounds ahead of where Blaise was with table food at this point. Wahoo-hopefully one less stress in my life. Dinners have become quite interesting and busy. I’ve learned that Blaise actually will eat pretty good if you feed it to him. Now, most other parents would never spoon feed their 3 year old, but with this teeny-tiny kid I’ll do whatever it takes. Since Mike is always gone, I usually give Sutton a bite, Blaise a bite, then myself a bite. Most often, my food is cold and I shovel in a few bites when everyone else is done.

We also took Blaise to see the circus in February. It was enjoyable, a little long and during nap time, but he loved seeing the puppies, riding on an elephant and the funny clowns.

Sutton is still just a terrible sleeper. Her average is getting up once around 1:30- I’ll go in and give her a pacifier and then at 3:30 she wants to eat. Sometimes at 6 another pacifier. That’s a good night, there are some nights where she is up every hour. I’m really hoping this improves.

January


Time for some updates. I’m having a hard time recalling all that happened the last three months, so I’ll do my best to update the blog. Sutton, please forgive me someday for not being as detailed with your first year of life!  The kids had a sitter for New Yaers Eve and had a good time as Mike and I went out with friends. The first weekend in January we took Blaise to see Seasme Street Live. It was  a fun day of just Blaise and Mom and Dad. We took him to eat at Quaker Steak and Lube and he enjoyed all of the motorcycles. He did really good at Seasame Street and kept asking where Big Bird went- he was only on stage part of the time, it’s hard to dance with a neck that tall! He wanted a snow cone, so he got that, then wanted cotton candy and also got that. He also took home a giant elmo/grover balloon.

Sutton had her six month appointment in January. Dr Groppe thought she looked good and everything was good. She weighed in at XXX. And was XXX tall. She still does 8 ounce bottles every three hours. She gets up quite a bit at night, at least twice. I’ve been trying to give her the paci as much as possible and not nurse her. We decided that she is just going to be a little slow at all she does development wise and might skip the crawling phase. She just rolls from her stomach to her back. She also developed an ear infection in January, I could tell because she would be up all night long crying. After some amoxicilian she was on the mend.

Also in January the kids got a new cousin! Uncle Tyler and Aunt Danielle had a baby girl Willow. We made the six hour round-trip one Saturday in January to meet her. Overall, they were fairly un-interested but Blaise loved seeing their dog Tucker and cat Boots. It will be fun having the girls grow up together! The kids did very good in the car on the trip- little travelers!

Both kids got to celebrate their Uncle Adam and soon to be Aunt Shelly’s wedding at their couple shower in Treynor.

Blaise can successfully count from 1-10. Any trip to Treynor involves riding his pony Ginger.
We went to the Zoo on President’s Day with grandma Peg. The weather was gorgeous, the kids loved it and we had a good time seeing all of the new babies born at the zoo.