Precious Picture

So Much So Much

First of all I cannot believe that basketball season is almost over! Wow, time really has flown right on by. People always say that once you have a child it goes by so quickly, but you really never get the full understanding until you have one. I mean, seriously, Kai is 7 months, sitting by himself, eating solids, rolling all over the place, starting to wiggle around (his version of crawling) and he has 2 teeth...didn't I just have him yesterday? Well...that's what it feels like! But with all this said, tonight was the last home game of this season and a BIG congrats to Brian and the Mules as they are regular season CHAMPIONS (I married no loser baby!) The game was a little anti-climactic because they have their sights set on being National Champions, but for us it was our first one. They got to cut down the nets after the game and all the students wore black shirts for a BLACK OUT. AND there were over 5,000 fans there. It was pretty cool. Plus, since my dad is in town Brian and I chose to go out for the first time since we've been here. Well, usually after Saturday afternoon games the Boosters have what they call a "Mule Train" and we go but are typically out of there by 7 at the latest. Tonight, however, we left to run home and feed the little guy, get him in bed and then went back out! We were still home by 10:30, but it was a late night for us and we were able to hang out with some of the other coaches. I even played pool...twice! We had a lot of fun. No worries, Kai didn't wake up :-)

Visitors...Visitors...I LOVE VISITORS! So Victoria came in last Friday and stayed until Tuesday and I just LOVED having her here (come back come back!) Mr. Malachi had a lot of fun with his Grandma and he was so very sad when she left. When he woke up from his nap after we dropped her off at the airport he looked around for her, then looked at me with this look of confusion, then looked around again. It was so precious. You don't think babies notice that kind of stuff, but give them some credit because they are smart little buggers! Currently my dad is in town and then Douglas comes for the MIAA tournament (don't worry Doug we'll make you some butterfingers!) and then 2 weeks after that my mom (and maybe Rachel) are coming out for my birthday! My dad talked about maybe buying a plane ticket for Meredith for her birthday to come out and see us, but I'm not holding my breath. I just really love having people visit!

Lastly, I'm not sure if I've already mentioned this because it really has been too long since I've posted anything, but Kai now has 2 teeth! Can you believe it?! I think he really just stared discovering them today because he kept rubbing them with his tongue AND he refused to let go of his sippy cup, even when you took his hands away. The kid LOVES chewing on that thing. I actually think he might be getting another tooth but we'll see. I'm in NO rush as he has discovered the ART of biting. Lovely. He's gotten a little better after a few "mommy freak outs", but we still have "relapses". Oh well, what can I do?

Well, until tomorrow...

New Favorite.

So Brian is a coach right? Well part of his job is to do all the scouting on the other teams...meaning he has to know all their plays, which players do what, match up who will guard who, etc. Well for all the games that he has had to scout, if they win he always says, "that is my new favorite", meaning that specific win was his favorite. Well tonight they won pretty big at Fort Hays State, which means many things: 1. That Coach Anderson is now the winning-est (sp?) coach at UCM, 2. UCM is tied with the best "road record" in MIAA Conference history, 3. Mules records moves to 22-1 AND 4. It is Brian's new favorite. So besides ALL the CONGRATS that go out to the team, I have decided that if he is allowed "new favorites", then I am most certainly entitled to have a new favorite of something. This thought made me realize: I have a new favorite of something ALL THE TIME. New favorite song, new favorite gum, new favorite movie, etc. Well here is is folks, this is officially my NEW FAVORITE picture.

Buddies.

Well I've been watching Hayden now since the end of October and things are going pretty well. Both him and Kai are relatively easy going babies, though they BOTH have their moments, but it has made me realize one thing: I DO NOT WANT TWINS. I mean, I know if I were to be blessed with twins I would be absolutely in love and cherish those babies, but it is so HARD sometimes. Especially now that they're older, they feed off each other, which makes it super stressful because when one starts crying the other starts crying. Actually, if Hayden starts crying first Kai has yet to cry, but he gets a super pouty lip and tears swell up in his big blue eyes. So sad...and cute at the same time. But that is not the reason for this post. The reason is this: they have just started to really notice each other and it is so fun to watch them interact. They will stare at each other, grab hands (or faces) and they even have an occasional chat. It just makes me laugh. Today Hayden was laying on his blanket just talking away and Kai was sitting play with his toys, but as soon as Hayden started talking Kai drops everything and literally strained his neck to stare down Hayden. It was just too funny. Good times...but amen for the weekend.

The Surgery

Well there really isn't a whole lot to say except, thank the Lord it is over! Kai woke up around 2am to get his last meal before the surgery and thankfully fell back asleep until we woke him up around 4:15. I got up at 3:30, though I had really been up practically all night - my mind wouldn't shut off! We took off to Children's Mercy around 4:30, stopped and filled up our tank and we were on our way. We weren't quite sure what the road conditions would be since it had snowed last night so we left a little earlier than we really needed to. Better safe than sorry!

Children's Mercy is actually really cute, though some areas were a little out-dated, though I don't blame them because I'm sure it costs quite a bit of money to upgrade a hospital ward. Eek. The "same day surgery" room was packed! I mean, seriously, 6:30am and that place was bumpin. We finally got called back and met with the nurse who took all of Kai's vitals. I think her name was Lauren, but honestly wasn't really paying attention to that. The bad news: Kai is still not 14#. What a little runt: 13lbs 13oz. Almost there! The good news: I'm not too worried about his weight at this moment :-) We got into our little room and the nurse gave Kai this really cute hospital gown to wear and some toys to play with. He also had a wet diaper and me a clean one to put on...a size 4! Seriously the kid should have just been naked because if he would have peed it would have gone EVERYWHERE! Hello, he wears a size 1 NOT a 4. Oh well. Okay, so we met with Dr. Murphy and the anesthesiologist and were left in our room while the dr got things all ready. Brian, thankfully, got Kai to fall asleep for a little bit because he was super fussy due to being tired and probably starving. The nurse came in shortly after and we walked down the hall the the "elephant elevator" where Kai was torn from my cold dead hands...okay, not really, but she took our little guy back to the operating room. Yes, I cried like a baby. But don't worry because once we got into the waiting room I didn't cry once!

The waiting room was actually really cute. It had these big plaster type fake trees for kids to play in, an area where you could make hot chocolate, tea and coffee and they even had granola bars! We were probably in there for about 45 minutes (which seemed like 45 hours!) when Dr. Murphy finally met with us. He went over all Kai's post-op care and said everything went perfectly fine. We are meeting him again 02/25 to have everything checked out. After this we had to wait in the waiting room for about another 20-30 minutes while Kai woke up...then FINALLY I got to hold our little guy. What a trooper. He was definitely out of it, but it was really cute. Though, he did have all this stuff taped and poke into his arm and that made me a little anxious to get out of there. The nurse, Cheryl, was great. she showed us his new (and improved) "he-man" (thank you Victoria) and said not to be concerned that it was a little red, very purple and slightly swollen. I fed Kai, hung out for a little bit and BOOM we were out of there, though by this time it was probably around 10:30a. We did have to stop by the pharmacy to pick up some druggies for the little man AND we HAD to stop by Chick-fil-A for lunch (yum!). Kai babbled for about half the trip home and then was OUT the rest of the way.

We got home safe and sound and pumped that kid full of drugs. They gave him an epidural type thing (in his tailbone) so the doc said he shouldn't be in too much pain until later tonight (great). I fed him and then put him down for some sleep because he was super fussy...which is completely understandable since he just got sliced.

Bottom line: Kai did a GREAT job and we are so very thankful that everything went well. I am also very grateful that Brian got home safely and was able to go with us because I would have really hated to walk into that waiting room alone crying like a little baby. Now let's just hope everything heals well so we don't have to go through this again!

A Win, A Loss, A New Shirt and Squash

A couple days ago we introduced squash to the little man. At first he was definitely not a fan, but gradually he's accepted the fact that even if he doesn't like it I will continue to give it to him. Last night, I'm not sure if it was because he was tired or just really hungry, but he ate a half a jar of squash. I was tempted to open another jar, but decided to not push my luck. One thing he likes about squash is the color. The first day, since he wasn't keen on eating it, I put some on his tray and he LOVED rubbing it all over the place...which lead to sucking on his hand, so I guess in some ways he ate more that way than he did with a spoon. Whatever works! We'll see how today goes...

Last night the Mules won another one vs Emporia State. Honestly I thought it was going to be a much better game, but they ended up winning by 18. Hey, I'm not complaining! Brian ended up selling a pair of his old Jordan's to one of his players and he wore them last night in the game and he ended up having a career high of 28 pts. It was all in the shoes! Kai had fun watching all the red, drooling all over the place, squealing at his pacifier (which we lost at the game) and eventually fell asleep for about 30 minutes, which I was very grateful for since he didn't get to bed until about 10:30.

On a sad note Brian is gone until Tuesday. The alarm went off at 3:30 this morning and I don't remember a thing. Kai and I were planning on being adventurous while he was gone and going to St Louis to visit Alyson, but according to the meteorologist it is supposed to start snowing today and not stop until Tuesday so I don't think St Louis is going to happen. Driving in the snow with a 6 month old does not sound like a whole lot of fun. Maybe we'll try to go the last weekend in February, but who knows. We'll find something to entertain us this weekend, though I'm not sure what since my Wal-Mart privileges have pretty much been revoked since I am having a hard time controlling my spending, hence Kai's new shirt (just for the record I have revoked these privileges, not Brian). Though, to be fair, I did not buy this at Wal-Mart, but at Walgreens. I was supposed to just run in to buy some Orajel on the way home from church on Sunday and somehow this shirt ended up in mix of items. What is my deal?! But it is a cute/great shirt and it was only $4.00! It's those dang cheap purchases that add up though - shoot.

Kai Loves Baths

One of the things I look forward to most during the day is...well, the end of the day. I know, sounds funny, but I just love our little routine. Usually he wakes up from his last nap and we have a little snuggle time, then we eat, then playtime with Daddy, then time for solids (which is getting better daily) and then, my ABSOLUTE favorite part: Bath time! Kai just loves the whole process. From getting out of his highchair, his face an absolute mess, to getting undressed and getting into the tub. He just loves it and we love watching him!! He loves trying to grab his toys, his toys, anything out of the tub and he just thoroughly enjoys splashing. I'm not sure which part I love more: watching him splash or watching Brian trying to clean up every little wet spot IMMEDIATELY after the water hits. It is very entertaining. I really hope Kai loves swimming - not necessarily competitive (though, of course, I would love that too), but just for fun. Brian and I are so excited to get him into the pool and see what he does. Of course, during baths we pour some water over his head and it catches him off guard, but he doesn't really seem to mind. All I know is that I love watching him play AND I love watching his reaction when he splashes himself. Too funny. He yells and squeels (in a happy way) and just has a good time. Things are just so simplistic to him and I love it. I think it, in a way, brings out the kid in Brian and I. Not that I squeel and splash in the tub, but it reminds us to enjoy the simple things.