Second annual trip to The Polar Express

We went on our 2nd annual trip to ride the Polar Express last weekend. We were thrilled that it's now in Branson! Although, Durango was an awesome experience, it was not a trip was up for with both the boys at this age. This was a doable roadtrip. Best of all, we were with extended family as well.

After the train ride with Sarah, Charlie & Greg, we joined Mom & Rick, Grandma Lois & Grandpa Gene, Sam & Keith for a belated birthday dinner for Sam. Then we had cake. Wish we would have had more time to spend together. Next year, we'll go for more than one night for sure. Warning: this post has a ton of pictures, but I can not and will not apologize :) I love them all!

Our best attempt at a family pic.

Me with my boys

"Tickets, please! Tickets!"

"Hot Hot....yeah we got it.....Hot Hot Hot Chocolate!"

Notice my son had to pick his own, as the chef is trying to hand him one. Silly, silly chef!

And the sugar high has kicked in. We had dancing in the aisles. And wrestling in the aisles.

Maybe we should have tried before the sugar high kicked in? With Uncle Greg

We are now in the North Pole. Elliot was bashful at first meeting.

So I took his bell for him.
Charlie & Noah are ok with the big guy...
E tested to make sure he was the real deal. Yep, the beard is real.

Wild? Yes. Out of control? Maybe. But, no fighting. Only love.
This face makes all the effort worth it.

My sweet little E was passed out halfway through dinner. He woke back up when we went to the hotel for cake without a fuss. Such a trooper! He fell back asleep on the way to our Condo and was out for the night. Big day for my little guy.

Having fun

The morning after our ride on the Polar Express, I spent some time alone with E. Because he's an early riser, I tried to get him out of the condo before he woke everyone up - probably quite unsuccessfully. Especially after Mandy gave him a bath in the huge whirlpool tub in our bathroom, where I could hear the splashing from across the condo.

We drove back into Branson and found a Shoney's for breakfast. He proceeded to destroy the breakfast bar, and then the bathroom too, where we left them a present that my tip did not do justice to. He fell asleep on the way back, and while Mandy and company went out for breakfast, I stayed at the condo and waited for him to get up from his nap.

He's getting to be a busy little guy, and likes to play. Once he got up we stretched out on the fold-out couch, and he had a ball just playing in the sheets and hopping on pop. He's getting pretty fast these days, and still pictures are getting harder to come by.

To paraphrase the quote, "good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement." He's apparently had some of both, because he now rushes right up to the edge of the bed and stops rather than kamikaze-ing right over without even pausing.

Trying to grab the wipes from me. We went through quite a few of these this morning (you're welcome, Mandy)

Charging at me from across the bed. Chasing dad is serious business.

Making faces at Dad

Looking like the angel he isn't.

Noah gets his groove on

I was making dinner for Noah and I looked over and he was dancing to the radio like he didn't have a care in the world. At least he's got a better sense of rhythm than his old man.

*That sound you hear in the background is our range hood vent going off because I let the water boil too long*

Bu-bye OT!

Elliot has been caught up developmentally for awhile now. With our IFSP review coming up in January with our service coordinator from First Steps and our OT from CCVI, our OT told us that I would probably have the option of stopping therapy or at least reducing it. So, our OT mentioned Elliot and how well he was doing the director and she suggested discharge. CCVI's mission is to help visually impaired children function in a sighted world. Well, Elliot is no longer visually impaired and he is functioning developmentally at his appropriate chronological age in all areas. We called the service coordinator and decided to just stop. So we are DONE! YAY for Elliot!

We will still be in the First Steps program until Elliot is 3. Once a month they will call me just to check and see if he's doing ok. Twice a year they will come out and evaluate him to be sure he's still on track. The reason for this is if he had a setback and required surgery again, he would immediately be able to start therapy and wouldn't have to be screened, etc. Plus you have to be significantly (50%) delayed to get into the program. But, if he had a setback we could start him back up to prevent a problem, rather than waiting for it to get bad. I really don't think that will happen though.

E's latest milestones include standing alone for several seconds and climbing up the stairs. Noah helps encourage him to get up the stairs and gets mad at me if I even touch his back "Let him be, mom! He wants to do it himself!". He cheers for him when he gets to the top. Such a good big brother teacher. He LOVES water, whether it be the bathtub, pool, dog dish, humidifer, and yes, I hate to say even the toilet bowl has been used before, much to my horror. E's eyes still wander out sometimes, but it is when he's tired and isn't an issue at this point.

We're so proud of Elliot!

"But, we don't have any money"

Last week one day I took the boys to the Y. I worked out, then we all swam. I was really rushing to get the boys ready and there in time to get this all in before E's naptime. Needless to say, it was naptime by the time I finished my run and was taking the boys to the pool. I didn't have time to pack a snack, so afterwards I bought Noah cheez-its out of the vending machine. He's always hungry after swimming and it was 11:00am by then.

Soooo, now everytime we go he begs for a snack from the vending machine. Friday we told him that we didn't have any money. We had packed raspberries though, so he was satisfied with that answer and our alternative.

Sunday Paul took him swimming and he, of course, asked again for a vending machine snack when it was time to stop swimming. Paul told him they didn't have any money, but he could have one at home. Well I guess Noah wandered over to the vending machines, LAID ON THE FLOOR, and in a sad, pitiful voice said "I want a snack, but we don't have any money." A woman feeling sorry for our poor, starving child offered to buy him a snack. Too funny! Reminds me of stories of me as a toddler begging for french fries from strangers at McDonald's. And getting them.

Imaginary Friends.....and enemies?

I know it's normal to have imaginary friends. Noah has two. I know I've mentioned Keena before, but he has another one named Coco. They play with him a lot, live in a house on Brookside Blvd and it seems Coco gets blamed for most of the things that happen to Elliot. But, is it normal to have an imaginary arch enemy?

Yesterday Noah & Hudson were playing on the 3rd floor. They pulled out the foam pieces I used to have in our playroom when Noah was a baby. They were pretending it was first a diving board jumping off a huge pile. Then it was a pile of dirt and they were "working" in it. All of a sudden, "Ronnie" was in it and they were not happy about that at all. They got into a fight with Ronnie. I still am not sure if Noah or Hudson created "Ronnie", but he was here off and on throughout the day.

We'll see if he sticks around.

Little Handyman

Noah thinks I can fix anything with a screwdriver. The reason he thinks so is that whenever one of his battery-operated toys is not working ("It's broken", he says in the saddest little voice), the fix is generally because the batteries ran out. In today's toys, every battery compartment is tightly shut with a screw or too. So I ask him to hand it to me, and he trails me into the kitchen imploring me to "fix it, Daddy" and looking up at me with hopeful eyes. He stands at my feet as I get out one of the many screwdrivers we keep in the kitchen drawer for just such an occasion, replace the batteries and hand it back to him. It really is sweet to see how happy he is when I hand his toy back to him, all fixed, and he says "Yay!!! Thanks, Daddy!"

When he sees me getting the step ladder to change a light bulb, he runs to the kitchen, grabs a screwdriver and hands it to me so I can "fix" the light. The other day our downstairs bathroom lights both burned out at once. They are sconces that take a special bulb that we didn't have on hand. He kept asking me to fix it, and even though I told him we didn't have any light bulbs, he kept getting me the small screwdriver kit we had in the kitchen drawer so I could fix it. He couldn't understand whyI couldn't just work my magic with my screwdriver.

An hour or so later, I went to the hardware store, got the light bulbs and replaced the lights. Noah wasn't around, so he didn't see me do it. A couple hours later he apparently got tired of me not fixing it, grabbed a screwdriver and started trying to adjust the screws on the light switch for a few minutes. Then he flipped the light switch on, and voila! The lights worked. "Yay! I fixed it Daddy! I fixed the light!" I told him I was very proud of him, and that he did a good job - he was so happy with himself.

Well, you can imagine that now that he nows how to fix stuff, he's taking it upon himself to be our little handyman. There was another light switch in the kitchen that didn't do anything when he flipped it (it goes to an outside light, which is why he didn't see it doing anything at the time). He's actually getting pretty good (too good) at getting the screwdriver into the screw slot.

I come from a family of handymen (I am easily the least handy), who all have heavy tool belts. So I know that your pants sagging a little bit is an occupational hazard that will occur on occasion. So I think Noah will fit right in, although I think he may be better suited to plumbing rather than electrical work.

Two blind mice

Because we had such a bad sleeper in Noah, and because we seem to have such a sensitive sleeper in Elliot, we have spent much of the last few years tiptoeing around our upstairs in the dark at night, trying not to wake either boy. You’d think that we would get accustomed to this pretty quickly. After all it’s not like we have a Byzantine maze of an upstairs. It’s pretty much just creaky wood floors with a 15-foot landing at the top of the stairs, turn right just past the attic stairs and about five feet later you’re in our bedroom.

One morning my internal GPS was a little off and I misjudged the turn into our bedroom. I didn’t just miss it by an inch or two either, and simply bang my shoulder into the wall - I literally walked into the wall next to the door. Mandy later told me it sounded like Noah had fallen out of bed. I didn’t just tiptoe into it either, I was moving fast, that’s how sure I was that I knew where I was going. I walked into it hard enough to split my eye open at my eyebrow, and proceeded to bleed all over the place. I went to the doctor that morning, and barely escaped stitches. And had to repeat that story several times at work that day. Mandy, of course, couldn‘t stop laughing.

Good blind people, we would not make. To liven up matters further, we have an iron baby gate at the top of the stairs that is permanently affixed to the wall. Being a good quality item, it let’s out a nice solid, loud “Bong!!!” whenever you forget it’s there and run into it in the dark and it bounces off the wall. It’s a hazard when it’s closed too, especially as you’re running up the stairs to put Noah back to bed at 4:30 AM and your eyes are just a little late in adjusting to the dark, and your brain a little late in remembering, “Hey, we’ve had a gate at the top of these stairs for three years.” Even the dog has fallen victim, in his haste to get downstairs, to running headlong into the gate in the dark when we get up in the early morning.

So yesterday morning, after working out and catching up on email on the computer, I decide it’s time to get ready for work. It’s still dark out as I make my way up the stairs and the light from the computer isn‘t doing anything for my night vision. I am proceeding cautiously to avoid banging into the gate and putting my hand straight out in front of me to avoid running into any misplaced walls. At least this morning I am remembering all previous lessons. So imagine Mandy’s surprise as she sleepily walks out of our bedroom into the dark hallway to go to Elliot’s room and a stranger is right there and grabs her around the throat with his hand. Ha Ha, you say? That’s what I said too - “hey what a coincidence we were both here at that exact same time!” - but after she got her breath and her heart rate back, Mandy was all, “Why!? Why!? Why would you do that!?”, like it was my idea of a joke and I was just waiting there for her, rather than it being pure cosmic timing. I, of course, couldn‘t stop laughing.

The day after Thanksgiving...

Hudson was over playing and my neighbor calls to tell me as crazy as it sounds, the girls are out in the sprinkler. It was unseasonably nice and sunny, but still.... it was in the 60's! I love my friend, Kelley. She is the "cool mom". I'd have told them it was too cold if they asked me. But, she just lets the kids do crazy, fun stuff (still safe), and that's why Noah wants to live there I'm pretty sure.

Sure enough Hudson & Noah wanted to join. So we let them. They didn't really get too wet, and spent most of the time sunbathing and catching up on their Vitamin D. And they had a blast! I had so much more fun hanging out with these kids, than I ever could have shopping on Black Friday.

Christmas lights, kids in the sprinkler, November in Kansas City. One of these things does not belong here, one of these things just isn't the same. One of these things does not belong here, now it's time to play our game.....

(notice E crawling fast trying to get in the water! ha!)

Best Friends

Noah hearts raspberries

He likes to put 3 on his fingers at once since he's 3 years old. Turns out Elliot and I heart them too. We are certainly getting our antioxidants in this house.