their birthday

I'm grateful for my boys, who turned one and four on the same day. November 20 has become one of the best days of my life two times over, and is appropriately just before Thanksgiving every year :)

chunky chicken

He's hangry.

As I've said before, Theo spends much of his free time getting his chub on. He does this fake whine whenever he sees, smells or senses food in the area, scrunching up his eyes and showing me his gappy front teeth. Then he says ma-ma over and over until I deliver. It's synonymous with food, and it's the only time he says it (so far).

In the past I've written on here about how scrawny he was at first after being born three weeks early and developing two big food sensitivities (plus being a poor breast-feeder). This photo at two months always makes me shudder because of how gaunt he looks. For most of his baby-hood, he wasn't even showing up on the weight chart.

At his nine month check-up I rejoiced as I was told he had made it to the FIFTH percentile for weight. After months of worrying about him getting enough calories - I had been told he wasn't by the doc - I felt victorious. I had been feeding him solids liberally since six months to help him catch up.

Three months later at his 12-month check-up, I would not have predicted Theo would be as chunky as he is now. He has cellulite, a big rear-end and cankles, which I am happy to point out to many, proud mama that I am. There are matching chub rolls over his knees, and his cheeks expand an inch or so from his face. He is now a pudgy 21 pounds, in the 25th percentile for weight and the 50th for height. Yay, Theo!

All adjectives for food that makes my mouth water come to mind. (Is that weird?) My dad used to call Tyler Chunky Tuna, and I just grew my own version.

Ankle Biter

If I have mentioned this before, here it is again. Theo has two passions in life: food and people. He is both a face-stuffer and a little socialite. I predict some potential hedonism in his future.

Toys have held no special fascination for him, and he does not entertain himself well. The two ways in which I accomplish tasks while he is awake is a) do them while holding him on my hip, or b) stick him in the high chair with finger food. I've gotten pretty creative with food he can feed to himself. We started with Cheerios but now we do tofu, grapes, bananas, raisins and anything I happen to be making for dinner that can be divided into bite-sized pieces and picked up by small, chubby paws.

Jono nicknamed him Ankle Biter the other day, because he's always at my ankles tugging on my pant leg. Oh, and I guess he did literally bite me on my leg three times recently when I didn't pick him up fast enough. I'm not kidding. Now when he approaches me as I'm busy with something and Jono is home, I yell, "COME GET HIM, HE'S GOING TO BITE ME." My voice shakes a little, and the child is 20 pounds with dandelion fluff for hair. 

Here he is, the little stinker, at his typical station:

 

Notice in the third shot he's getting a little more serious about getting picked up. Watch out. Oh, the innocence.

orchards and stuff

Every fall we make a trek out to at least two orchards, usually with extended family. Our first stop this year was Robinette's, right outside our city. This is the place we choose to go with just us - it's close and not too elaborate.

We ate pumpkin-spice doughnuts, gawked at the giant apple and went down the wagon slide a few times, like we always do. Although all of this was a first time for Theo!

Normally we'd also squeeze in a hike on the nearby trails, but it was getting late and our boys were wheezy. (The onset of respiratory problems in my children is the only part of fall that I hate.)

We were planning to purchase some cider at Robinette's for a few toasty warm drinks (rum n' cider, anyone?) later on, but with the drought and all the price of cider was ridiculous. Sad. And not just because I won't be drinking rum and cider... more importantly I feel bad for the farmers.

Second stop this year was Fruit Ridge Farms with my side of the family, which we'd done one other time with them. At this one we went the whole nine yards: doughnuts, cider and a hay ride, the duration of which Brett pontificated about his love for the outdoors and the soul-healing, peaceful activities that are often set there. (He whined the whole time.)

We were a little stressed at the beginning of the hayride because Theo seemed fussy, but as long as my dad was letting him jump up and down in his lap, and no one tried to shush him when he yelled for extended periods at the top of his lungs, he was fine. Not sure we can say the same of our fellow riders, but oh well.

You may notice the reappearance of the mini baby scarf, which Theo allows me to put on him, while Jude did not (other than in the hospital directly after his birth, when he was in no position to fight me).

Now the leaves are mostly gone from the trees and we're preparing for winter. I smelled it for the first time two days ago while taking out the garbage, which initially gave me a little thrill. Hoping to milk that feeling into January, but I'm doubtful this will happen.

Happy fall, y'all.

Iowa: a first

Rainbow near Grundy Center, IA

I'm half-Iowan, if that makes sense. My mom was born and raised there, and I grew up there too, partially. We get back often - a few times a year - because of these roots, and to see the people we love who are still there.

First stop, three hours in.

Squash face

My latest trip to Iowa was a first though. I went there alone, with my two boys. I have a small clan of  good, old friends from the Iowa days who I wanted to see. My friend Malissa now lives in Washington and was going to be back near our old hometown for her sister's wedding. She e-mailed the other three of us to see if we could make it out. I am the only other wild card, being second-furthest away in Michigan, while Teri and Deborah both live in Iowa. At first I wasn't going to go. I had just been there with my family the month before, and I knew my mom couldn't come with me this time because of a surgery she was scheduled to have. So I dismissed it.

But then the e-mail responses from my friends continued to come in, saying "I'll be there!", and I thought to myself, what's stopping me from going alone with the boys? Deborah comes to Michigan alone with her three kids to see her sister all the time. I felt inspired by her. If she could do it, so could I. Thirteen hours each way? Meh. It was do-able.

Blue skies and big trucks

Rain over Minnesota

Windmills were a common part of the landscape

My little creeper. And my glasses are crooked.

Last stop - relief from one of Theo's two meltdowns.

So I did it, it went amazingly well, and I was inwardly a tiny bit proud of myself. I feel like I could do it again sometime, no sweat.

One major thing that helped were two great little kids' albums by the 90's band, They Might be Giants. We checked out both the ABC and 123 records they had made from the library (Jude is currently obsessed with letters and numbers), and both Jude and I were singing along with every word a few hours into the journey.

Also, the big sky and massive cloud formations were incredible. I have probably 20 photos on my phone of the various stages of storms rolling in and out, and it was breathtaking.

Lastly, it helped that we stopped to stay overnight with my lovely grandparents eight hours in. If we hadn't been able to do that, it probably would've been a deal-breaker on taking this trip. What ended up being a fifteen-hour journey would've been a wee bit too much to ask of my small-ish boy-children.

Jude with his Bedstemor ("Grandma" in Danish)

Hanging out with my friends was so great. There's always that catch-up period, but a few hours in we were talking over each other like we always used to do. My friend Deborah's sister, Heather, said to her, "Do you realize you guys are constantly interrupting each other?" We laughed and agreed that we still manage to hear what everyone else is saying. We're just excited by each others' presence, I guess.

Seven of the ten collective offspring

Deb's Jackson with Theo

I sadly did not get a photo of the four of us together, but I did snap a couple of our multitude of offspring. Malissa has four, Deb three, Teri one, me two. We tromped around Sioux Center, Iowa with our ten collective children for an afternoon, hitting the park, a huge open space in the mall (because it rained for awhile), and a coffee shop.

We're seriously discussing having our next reunion in Las Vegas, a destination that usually wouldn't interest me, but with these women (and maybe without the kids), I wouldn't say no :)

Good Old ER

Oh, ER, the hours we have spent within your walls. Especially after Theo's recent respiratory episode, where we hit a record time of 1.5 days and most of two nights. Ugh.

That is the furthest I'll take my complaints though. There are many children, including two within our own circle of friends and family, who have spent horrible amounts of time in hospitals, and a chunk of time here and there that we have spent in this sterile, worrisome location is ridiculously small by comparison.

When we do go there it's because of our boys' "reactive airways", which translates into intense wheezing and breathing difficulties after colds, exercise, etc. Jude was in the ER three times one year for it, and Theo was inducted for the first time last week. Jude continues to be on a daily medication for his asthma that we now use only seasonally, as well as an inhaler when his wheezing and coughing spike. Chances are Theo will be on the same thing(s) within a year or so, considering the symptoms we've seen in him this past month.

Sleeping on my chest, finally, after a breathing treatment

Being one of those types who prefers natural remedies, especially with my children, this bothers me sometimes. We tried other things before putting Jude on a daily med. But the importance of my boys' ability to get oxygen into their lungs trumps all that. We still use natural remedies for congestion (an olive oil and eucalyptus rub and humidifiers), but when they start to have any serious trouble breathing, out come the big guns. When you're at a turning point, eucalyptus oil is for kids whose colds don't land them in the hospital.

Okay then, moving on...

A few great things came out of last week's experience. First, we all got to see Theo in a tiger hospital gown. Ack! Amazing.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B (hair shot)

Exhibit C ("Nurse?")

Second, unless he was getting "booger-be-gone" or albuterol breathing treatments, he remained his happy self, blabbering endlessly, playing in his hospital crib, flirting intensely with the nurses (see video).

Speaking of flirting, the third great thing was that the ER had a little red welcome wagon in which Theo and I wore a path around the hospital. In our boredom, it was one of the only ways we could escape our tiny room.

I can barely describe how he looked perched in this wagon, in his hospital gown with his fuzzy hair standing on end, without becoming breathless and flushed. I'm fanning myself right now.

Whenever we rolled past a nursing station there was mass swooning and cooing from the lady-folk, mildly bored on their night-time shifts. Theo LOVED that, of course, and amped it up a bit by head-banging and yelling at them with a crazed, elated look on his face. 

I guess the last good thing that came of this little episode is that we were given an excuse to purchase a Nose Frida, the Snotsucker. Using it involves the parent placing a clear nozzle into the baby's nostril and actually sucking from the tube attached. The boogers flow freely (and visibly) into the clear nozzle from the power of your own breath. Mind-blowing. (Note that boogers do not go into the parent's mouth. There's a filter!)

Nose Frida has actually become a verb in our house, and though Theo hates it, the rest of us kind of look forward to it, to be honest.

"So Theo, did you just get Nose-Frida-ed?"

"Did you Nose-Frida him yet today?"

So, we're home now, he's still a bit wheezy, and we're praying we don't have to go back this week. Somehow I would find that embarrassing, though I'm not sure why.

Two Teef

Here we have photographic evidence of Theo's first crack at eating a cucumber slice, back when he had only two bottom teeth. Look carefully. (See them?)

 This is kind of how I get my jollies these days.