Oh My Goodness!

Go here to see something so sad but still strangely funny at the same time.

Our poor little Macy! I hope she forgives us.

And Now…The Rest of the Story

The week has snuck by, and I forgot to post the rest of our pictures from the trip. I’m discovering another useful thing about blogging is that it really serves as a great way to remember trips, even if it bores everyone else.

And now…the rest of the story (I just love Paul Harvey).

The most memorable part of the trip is that this was the first extended time away for me and Wade together post-child but without the child. Wade had to go to a conference in southern California, so I got to tag along with him. Tate was soaking up all of the attention and fun for one day at his friend Jackson’s house (thank you Laura!!!) and then for three days at Mimi & Grandpa’s house (thank you Mom & Dad!!!).

So I had always been curious about what life in the real OC and in The Hills was like. From what I saw, I think I like my little suburban life just fine. We had a great time, but everywhere we went there was a TON of traffic, everything was expensive, and everyone was just dressed way too cool for me. It wore me out.

But the highlights of the trip were:

• Driving through beautiful neighborhoods in the Hollywood Hills and scary, narrow, curvy streets to find just the right view of the famous sign.

• Bowing down to the Star of all Stars’ Hollywood Walk of Fame star. With all of her cheese and goofiness, I still love Celine!

• Wade realizing he and Humphrey Bogart had the exact same hand and shoe size. I always thought there was a little resemblance.

• Realizing that maybe our gas prices of $3.79/gallon aren’t that bad.
  

• Completing 2 seconds of my 15 minutes of fame with a very short appearance on The Tonight Show. Do you see us (hint…far left)? The show was pretty cool to go to, and Dwight Yoakam put on a surprisingly nifty little outdoor concert. But how does he breathe in those pants?
  
  

• Feeing no guilt at all as I had a hot dog and shared nachos AND Cracker Jacks with Wade at the Anaheim Angels vs. LA Dodgers baseball game on the 4th row. It was a great game, great seats, great weather, and a great stadium.
  
  

• And who can’t help but enjoy finishing out a quick, kid-free trip away with the one you love while watching a fireworks show choreographed to classic rock hits of the ‘60s? Just what I’ve always dreamed of.

Some highlights without pictures:

• We laugh about it now, but it was extremely tense and scary when we had a flat tire within 30 minutes of arriving in town right in the middle of an insanely busy highway that splits off two ways. Wade changed the tire really fast, and we got out of there really fast. SCA----RY!

• I spent way too much time researching all of the hot spot restaurants in West Hollywood. After realizing their version of trendy was way more than the latest cute dress from Ann Taylor Loft, I thought to myself, “Who am I kidding?” We then settled for a delicious meal at a nice, classic steakhouse on Santa Monica Blvd.

• We also learned quickly that our dinner reservations at 7:30 p.m. at a place on Sunset Blvd. were the equivalent of the older folks eating at Luby’s at 4:30 p.m. here. Seriously, there were two other people at the restaurant! The waitress said the dinner crowd starts at around 9:00 p.m. Woops!

• So our one and only late night out on the town was going to the Second City Training Center on Hollywood Blvd. We saw a couple of student one-man shows. They weren’t the best, but also weren’t the worst. Hopefully they’ll get famous one day, and we can say we saw them way back when.
  

It was a fun-filled four days away together, but by late that Saturday night, we were both ready to come get the Tater Tot and have our little family back together again.

And The Winner Is…

Just be glad you weren’t at my house watching the DVR’d American Idol finale. You would be very frustrated right now. After 1 hour 59 minutes and 45 seconds of sitting through some good songs, some bad songs, and some really awkward dancing, this is my last 15 seconds of viewing.





This would be the downside of the DVR and live programming. AAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGG! I couldn’t believe it. So what does anyone living in 2008 do? I ran and Googled “American Idol winner” to then be even more shocked to find out David Cook won.

Even though I predicted David A. to win, I’m really thrilled that it was such an upset. I was sure David A. would get all of the teeny bopper and mothers of teeny bopper votes. But somehow, all of my fellow 30-somethings pulled through and voted for the better artist of the two. It kind of gives the show a little more credibility in my eyes that it isn’t as formulaic as I thought.

So even after week after week of tried and true watching, I’ll have to actually see the winner announced on YouTube.

American Idol Finale

Short and sweet thoughts on the AI finale while I have a few spare minutes of naptime left:

• I thought it was the best finale yet.
• The boxing theme was way too cheesy.
  I’ve been a big fan of David C. the whole season, but I thought he fell short a bit last night. He’s set the bar so high on what he can do, that it was a little disappointing. The U2 song was great, though.
• Right before Simon said it himself, I said he should have sung Billie Jean again as the third song.
• I do think David A. is adorable, but as I’ve said before, his style music is too Clay Aiken-esque for my tastes.
• But when it’s all said and done, it is a singing competition. David C. is the best overall artist, but I think the winner will and should be David A. That boy can sing!
• Is it just me, or do they both seem really sweet and actually a little humbled by all of the craziness?

Impressive

I'm impressed with all of you smartypants out there that knew it was the Brady Bunch house. Here I am standing in awe of the national landmark.



Well, I'm not sure it's made it to that status yet (although it should!), and actually a real life non-Brady family currently lives there. As a longtime fan who has seen EVERY single episode (what were they thinking with cousin Oliver??), I was pretty excited to find this little treasure tucked away. Here's more than you would ever want to know about this famous house.

Since we were at the Brady house, then you've probably guessed what city we were visiting. If not, these should help.


Hmmmmm?????


Got it yet?

Ah ha!

Trying to look famous.


Showing off his strength.

More pictures to come once I get back on Central Time.

Until then, what is your favorite episode of The Brady Bunch? One of mine was when Greg had the attic pimped out into the super cool disco-themed room.

Tate, Top 4/3, & Mystery Location

It’s already like it never happened. The saying is so true that kids are resilient. Within 48 hours of being released from the hospital, Tate had his appetite again and was already back to his old food-throwing tricks. For a brief moment in time, I was even glad to see him do that. We have seen some post-hospital behavior that isn’t much fun. He was already in a phase of not liking getting his diaper changed…well being pinned down while at the hospital didn’t help this phase much. He’s remembering that he now knows how to scream…really loud. But, we’re just thrilled to have our boy back happy and healthy. Thank you SO much for all of the sweet and kind comments of well wishes and prayers for all of us.

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So with the hospital stay and then a trip out of town (more on that to come), I am way behind on my weekly American Idol posts. I do have to say that my predictions on Jason and Syesha were correct…just like anyone else that watched I’m sure. I’m so glad the two Davids made it to the finals. It should be good!

And sadly, I think I jumped the gun on my announcement of an AI watching party. With the craziness we’ve had going on and some other previous commitments, I don’t think it’s going to work out. If anyone wants to come over and watch it on the DVR later that night, feel free! Bummer, though, it’s always fun watching it with people that care…sorry Wade!

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As to where we’ve been the last 4 days…here’s a tease. Can you guess whose house this is and where it is? (If I’ve already told you, don’t spoil the fun!)

What A Week

Where to begin? I’ll save the gory details and give the highlights, which most of the time felt more like lowlights.

The week began with what felt like Round 28 of Tate getting the stomach bug (it was really just the third time, but once is enough with this thing). We took him to get checked out on Monday because he seemed even more lethargic then the previous bouts he’s had. They sent us home after a dose of anti-nausea medicine and with the usual order of clear fluids, rest, and let the virus work itself out.

So Wade leaves town on Tuesday morning for a meeting in Philadelphia. He asks one more time if he should leave. I reassure him, “Don’t worry. We know how this goes. He’ll be fine by tomorrow.” Uh, wrong.

He proceeds to not be able to keep anything down on Tuesday. I start to get worried. I’ve never seen him so lethargic. It was horrible to see him try to crawl around and only be able to hold himself on his elbows or see him try to lie down to go night-night while IN the bathtub.

He wakes up Wednesday morning and proceeds to sip some water. When that immediately came back up, I knew this was getting serious. I had only been up about 45 minutes…no shower, still had on the shirt I had slept in, no make-up, glasses, you get the picture. I take him to the pediatric urgent care center thinking they might give him a quick IV, and we’ll be home in a couple of hours.

Tate continues to become drastically lethargic and is in and out of sleep. For the next three hours, he had a series of X-rays, blood drawn, and a catheter. Yep, a catheter. I have never heard, and hope I will never again hear, that scream that came out of him. It was absolutely horrible and made vaccines look like a walk in the park. It took me, my Mom, and two nurses to hold him down. Horrible. Then to make it worse, they couldn’t get anything out of the catheter. He was all dried up…poor guy.

Then the nurse gives me the lovely news that we need to proceed to the downtown children’s hospital immediately. I could take him there myself or they could hook him up to the IV now, and we could go by ambulance. Thanks, but I’ll take him myself.

After losing more than 10% of his body weight and an afternoon of more blood drawn and two attempts at an IV because his dehydrated veins wouldn’t cooperate, they decide to admit him.

So the quick trip that I thought would only take a couple of hours ended up taking over 48 hours…all while Wade is out of town. Thank goodness my Mom was there to help out because I’m really not sure how I could’ve done it by myself.

Wade got on the first flight home Thursday morning (thank goodness!) and was able to get the full hospital experience for another day.




The whole thing was so scary. Once we knew that the lab work came back negative and it was just dehydration from the rotavirus, I felt a little better. But seeing your child that miserable and in that much pain, while you can’t do anything about it, is absolutely heartbreaking.

I did get one of those forced special perspective moments out of the whole thing, though. My usual stellar sleeper could not calm down enough to sleep in the hospital baby crib Wednesday night. They brought in a full hospital bed so that I could hold him and sleep with him (after signing a waiver that I acknowledged that the AAP thinks I’m a horrible parent for bringing my child in the bed and risking his life…whatever!). Needless to say, Tate got a full night’s sleep, but I was up pretty much the whole time.

It’s not often that I’m forced to be that still and quiet for that long. In fact, it was pretty surreal as I remembered the last time I held my baby in a hospital bed. At only 7.8 pounds then, it was a little bit easier. But I soaked in every minute as I thanked God for giving this little guy to me and for knowing that he would be OK.

Walking the halls of a children’s hospital will provide a ton of perspective as you realize that it could be so much harder. Kids with cute little bald heads from chemo, parents that probably just heard some bad news crying in the waiting room, and floors with “ology” names that you hope you never have to go to. Lots of perspective.

But he was discharged this morning, and Tate got to be wheeled out in a super-cool wagon. I think he was quite ready to jump out of it and into the car if he had to.



Then we were home in time to all three have a WONDERFUL afternoon nap. Tate is already getting back to his normal self as you can see from the video in the car tonight. I think it’s Tateish for “I’m sure those people at the hospital were all very nice, but why in the world, did they have to put all of those things in me and poke and prod me every four hours?”



I hope I don’t ever have to go through something like that again, but I’m also extremely thankful that he is so much better already and we have our little boy home again.

17 Months

How is it possible that Tate is already 17 months old? The months seem to go faster and faster.




And who knew it could be so exciting to see your kid stand up? Yes, I’m realizing there are true simple pleasures in life. He still has to hold on to something and hasn’t been able to get around while standing, but he seems to really love the new perspective. He pulls up to stand at the window sills to watch Macy outside. And a new part of his routine is to stand up and look out his bedroom window after his nap each day and watch all of the fun.




I’ve got a whole post in itself coming soon about what the next parts of his physical therapy process include. He really is making progress; we just have a lot more to do to get his legs and ankles strong enough to support him.

But for a kid with low muscle tone and mobility delays, he sure can get around. He is all over the place and has recently figured out how to climb up the stairs. It’s pretty funny to watch as his coordination is a little wobbly. When he gets all the way to the top, he loves to clap for himself and wants you to clap for him too.

Next topic…food. Oh my. We have our good days and bad days, but the bad days almost send me over the edge. Tate definitely knows what he likes to eat. And if he likes it, he LOVES it. (Yogurt, milk, bananas, waffles, chicken nuggets, crackers, spaghetti with meat sauce, Chipotle burrito, Pei Wei chicken and noodles, and any dessert). But if he sees a new food and doesn’t recognize it, he immediately determines he doesn’t like it. This makes for some very interesting meal times and a very limited choice of food.

And to add even more fun to meal time, we are working hard on teaching that you can’t throw your food once you’re done with it or if you don’t want to eat it. Any tips from the veterans out there? Here he is eating a new favorite…Spanish rice with guacamole mixed in. Random I know, but he likes it??? Yes, we’re also working on teaching Tate how to use a fork. As you can see, it’s not going so well.

I’ve been so intrigued watching him become interested in so many more things. He loves his fire truck and cars. He’s figured out to make a train noise and hand motion for the choo-choo when we see the big train on 377. He finally figured out to get the balls down the chute on his ball pounder. And he loves standing up and playing with the animals in his Little People farm.

Speaking of animals…we became members of the Fort Worth Zoo and went three times this month. (Side note, if you live in the area and plan to go a few times, it’s well worth it.) We’ve had gorgeous Spring days for it lately, and Tate seems to like it. I think. He kind of just looks at the animals, or at the waterfalls, or at the airplanes flying by. Oh well!

We’re also working on animal sounds. Right now, when he makes the sounds they all sound alike. But, he seems to enjoy watching me look silly as I make all of the sounds. Once I go through the monkey, lion, and elephant sounds, he does the sign for “more” and wants me to do it all over again.

And here are some videos of him playing. We actually find him alone a lot looking at himself in the mirror and giggling. It’s pretty funny.







So that’s the past month in the world of Tate. It’s so hard to believe he’s going on 18 months now. Reminder to self…slow down and soak it all in…even while he’s throwing food at you. :)