SIX Months Old!

Baby Sam turned 6 months old this week.  That officially makes him closer to 1 than to being a newborn.  I'm not sure I can handle 2 toddlers...I better start preparing myself for that because it will be here before I know it.

Sam had his 6-month visit on Friday; he weighed in at 18lbs 1.5oz and measured 26.75 inches long.  I always joke about how big he is, but he is actually only in the 60th percentile for length and weight--I think it is just the darn cheeks that make him look so big!  His pediatrician said everything looked great.  He wasn't too concerned that he hasn't rolled over, since he is progressing in everything else.  He did comment that it is likely "his size" that is holding him back from being able to roll--poor baby.  He also said that if we have another ear infection in the foreseeable future we will end up with tubes.  His last ear infection took 2 different oral antibiotics and 2 shots to clear--that is not a good sign for what is too come.  I'd hate to see that happen, but I also would hate to see him suffer with each ear infection as he did with this most recent one--it took 3 weeks to get it clear.

Sam is growing so much.  He has begun to sit some unsupported-only for about 30 seconds or so, but its a start.  He talks non-stop and everyday interacts with us more.  He has really started to use his hands and arms.  He has also started to give some of the best, most slobbery kisses.

I can not have a post about the past month without mentioning the biggie--Sam's circumcision.  He had his circ done a week ago Friday and is healing nicely.  The surgery went off without a hitch and the aftermath has not been bad at all.  By far the worst part was the nerves leading up to it.

Waiting for surgery

The morning of surgery we arrived at the hospital about an hour and half before start time.  They got him checked in and took his vitals.  We then met with an OR nurse who told us about recovery, followed by the anesthesiologist that told us how he would be put under and cared for during surgery and of course risks, finally we met with the surgeon again (he was still not friendly, but better).  After seeing all of his care team one of the absolute worse moments as a mom came--I had to give them my baby.  I, of course, cried and Sam, of course, smiled--I love that little boy!  Surgery only last about 45 minutes and he was in recovery for about the same--all in all he was only away from us for about 2 hours.  The OR/recovery nurse said he did great and didn't cry once.  We were on our way home about 20 minutes later.  They gave him a spinal block to help with the immediate pain, so he really didn't seem to bothered by it until the next day.  Overall, I think we only had about a day or two that he was fussy from it.  The swelling has gone down and things are looking pretty "normal" down there.  I am so happy for this to be past us.  Thanks to everyone one who called, texted and sent Facebook messages to check on him-he is a loved little boy.

A couple other pictures:

All smiles

Tummy time-playing with the toy Robbie bought him for a get well gift

Love this face!

Robbie's Christmas Program

Yesterday, Robbie's school held a Christmas Program in which each class sang a couple of songs.  It was probably one of the cutest things I have ever seen.  Robbie's class sang "I'm a Little Snowman" and "Jingle Bells."  Brandi, one of his teachers, told me I had to have him there, because he was one of the loudest singers.  I was very impressed, he seemed to know all of the words and even sang along to some of the songs other classes sang.  We may have the next Justin Bieber on our hands!

Here is "I'm a Little Snowman"

There are 2 boys that Robbie always mentions when I ask about his friends--Owen and Aaron.  Owen is to the left of the screen in the green plaid and Aaron is in the navy and red striped sweater next to Robbie.  This was a super cute song; I had never heard it.

Its a little hard to hear, but the words were:
I'm a little snowman, round and fat
Here are my buttons, here is my hat
When it gets hot I melt away
But I'll be back again some day


And "Jingle Bells"

A Fresh Start

There seems to be a theme to our life over the past 6 months-CHANGE.  In staying with that theme, we are both changing jobs this week (why spread it out, we like things as difficult as possible).

Rob started at CVS on Monday.  He liked Price Chopper (where he had been for the past 3.5 years), but the schedule was less than ideal.  He closed 3 nights a week and worked every other weekend.  While you know, as a pharmacist, you will be working hours like that it became a lot after the addition of the second kid.  CVS offered a better schedule, better pay and more vacation-win, win, win!  His first 2 days have gone well, but I think he is a little overwhelmed with new people and a new computer system.  I have no doubt he will catch on quick.

I start with Aetna Rx Home Delivery tomorrow. I have been at KU for 8 years-I started as a 3rd year pharmacy student.  I have cherished my time there and have learned so much, but ultimately decided it was time to move on and take a new challenge.  It is a full-time position (I've been part-time for the past 2 years), so I am a little nervous about that, but it is a very flexible schedule with limited nights and weekends, so I think it will be fine.  Aetna is a mail order pharmacy, so it will be very different than what I have been doing.  I am excited and nervous for the change.  Its weird to think that things I do everyday I won't need to know any more and things I learned in school I will probably have to relearn.  More than anything I will miss the people I worked with everyday at KU-they are a wonderful group of people that I truly enjoyed seeing each day.

All of this change has been stressful, but I have learned one thing--Change is Good.  We don't grow or learn without it.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.  As always, it was super busy, but we saw pretty much our whole family so it was worth it.  A run down of our weekend:

Thursday

We spent Thanksgiving Day with Rob's family, at my in-laws.  This was our first Thanksgiving with his family (previous years we have spent it with my Dad's family), I know they were excited to have us there (actually, to have the boys there, but I like to pretend people like to see Rob and I).  Rob's aunts, uncles and cousins were at dinner, so there were nearly 30 of us.  We had a fabulous feast and then rounded out the evening with some serious games of Left-Right-Center and Pass the Trash.

Some of Rob's cousins feasting

Robbie outside with the big boys

One of these days we WILL get a good pic of the 3 of them

Sam and Hanna playing-so fun to see them finally start to interact

Each year my Aunt Susan makes homemade rolls for Thanksgiving and since we weren't going to be there to enjoy them, I took my first go at them.  Overall, they turned out well-I was quite proud of myself.

Robbie helping me with rolls

Friday

Friday morning we took the long trek to St. James to visit my Dad's family.  It is one of the only times of the year I get to see some of his family that lives in Ohio, so I didn't want to miss seeing them.  Also, my Grandma Hutcheson turned 92! on Thursday, so we wanted to wish her a Happy Birthday.  Friday evening we had dinner with everyone and Saturday morning my Grandma took us all to the town diner for breakfast.

Robbie had a great time on this trip to St. James.  My cousin Nathan has a 4 year old daughter, Ella, that he had a blast playing with.  On Friday evening, they literally ran circles around my cousin's house for 25 minutes--they had so much fun, I was exhausted from watching.

Playing Aunt Susan's piano 

Robbie sitting at the kid table at breakfast

The boys with "Nana-Great"-my Grandma

Saturday

Saturday after breakfast we headed to Jefferson City for the annual McVey Family Christmas.  My mom is one of 8 kids, so they have always done Christmas as a family on a weekend other than Christmas.  It is always so wonderful to see all of my aunts, uncles and cousins.  I feel so blessed to come from such a big family with such a wonderful tradition. 

Robbie making crafts that my Grandma brought for the kids

Late Saturday evening we headed home so we could have all of Sunday to recover and get some things done.  It was a great weekend filled with family.  I am such a lucky woman--I have a supportive and loving husband, 2 amazing boys and a wonderful family.  There is so much to be thankful for and I could not ask for more.

The 3 most wonderful men in my life

Sam- 5 months

I'm a few days late on this post, but its been a crazy week.  Sam is 5 months old!  Unfortuantely for him, he rang in the 13th with a cold that turned out to be an ear infection--poor guy.  After a few days on antibiotics he seems to be doing much better.

OMG!  I'm 5 months old!

 Sam continues to grow at such an amazing rate.  It is flying by far faster than Robbie's early months did.  He continues to be a sweet, happy, loving baby.  He is currently drooling like a fool, so I'm thinking/hoping we are about to get our first tooth.  He is starting to support himself more, so I imagine by this time next month we will be sitting unsupported for a little bit.  He's not rolling over yet-though he is darn close.  If this was my first baby, I would probably be freaking out that he hasn't yet, but honestly the longer he is non-mobile the better.  I already run around like a mad women-a second child that moves is really going to turn things up.

Sam started solids this month.  He seems to be slowly getting the hang of it and is enjoying it more now that we have moved past just rice cereal.  So far he has had rice cereal, oatmeal, carrots and banana.  I am trying to make my own baby food (except the cereal), so I made my first batch of carrots this week.  They turned out pretty good--they look so much better than the jarred food and taste pretty good too.  I'm sure I won't make everything, but I'm at least going to try for basic, plain veggies and fruits.

Our first go at cereal

Are you ready for some football?

Such a handsome boy

Trying out the walker for the first time.

Playing in his highchair

Happy Halloween!

This Halloween will not go down as our best.  Poor Robbie was sick with a fever of 103-104 degrees for 5 days leading up to Halloween.   His worse day, by far, was Halloween, and after 3 visits to the doctor they finally diagnosed him with strep throat and put him on an antibiotic-by the next day he was a whole new kid.  But needless to say we didn't get to take part in any real festivities-we had to miss his Halloween Party at school and we didn't get to go Trick-or-Treating.  However, being the pain-in-the-ass mother that I am, I still made them get into their costumes-twice!

The cutest monkey and banana I've ever seen

My little monkey 

The sweetest banana EVER!

We first had them get dressed up on Sunday at my in-laws.  Rob and his sister both had to work on Halloween, so we did Halloween with his family then.

My boys and their cousin Hanna

Miss Hanna as a cat

 On Halloween we went to my parents so that they could see them in their costumes.

With Nana and Gramps

Poor monkey--look at those sick eyes

A very tired banana

My boys are getting so big!

Time is going way too fast.  Today Sam turned 4 months old and Robbie turned 2 and a half--two. and. a. half--I can not believe it.  I have been so blessed over the past 2 1/2 years with 2 amazing boys.  They have changed me in so many ways--ways I knew they would, ways I was surprised about, and ways I didn't know possible.  I am so lucky.

Sam at 4 months
Sam has really decided to pack it on in the past couple of weeks.  Literally overnight his cheeks doubled in size--I LOVE it!  Robbie called him Baby Chunk one day, and the nickname has stuck.  The part that is hard to believe is that Robbie was even bigger at this age.  He is such a sweet boy.  He smiles constantly-even stopping from eating to smile (I know that is hard to believe with cheeks like that).  He has really started to socialize with us--talking, laughing, stopping what he's doing to pay attention to us.  He also really loves his big brother-he watches him and smiles at him.  It is so sweet.

Robbie at 2 and 1/2
In the past couple of months Robbie has grown up so much.  He walks, talks and acts like such a little man.  He talks in 3-5 word sentences and carries on real conversations.  He makes and laughs at jokes.  He decided this past Sunday that he no longer wanted to wear diapers; he wanted to wear "big boy" pants.  We had tried potty training this spring, with no luck and hadn't put much effort into it since then.  I wasn't real sure how ready he was, but didn't want to tell him 'No' if he was going to give it a shot, so we gave them a try.  We are now 5 days in and the past 2 days have been accident free!  I'm pretty stoked and so proud.  I can't believe how big he is getting-it amazes me every day.

Some other pictures from the past few weeks:

CHEEKS!!

The boys and Uncle Kyle

First bath together

Eating tomato soup--he was covered in it.

Pumpkin Patch

A couple of weekends ago we made our annual trip to Carolyn's Pumpkin Patch.  This was our third trip with Robbie and I was so excited to go as a family of four for the first time.  It was a beautiful day outside and we had a wonderful time.  Robbie had such a great time playing on all of the activities and feeding the animals.  In fact, he had such a great time he threw quite the tantrum when it was time to leave.

Robbie feeding the goats

Seeing how tall he is-I'm going to make this a yearly picture.
Too bad the measurements are WAY off (he's really like 37 inches).

Going down one of the many slides.

Daddy helping Robbie climb the 'rock' wall.

Baby Sam hanging out.

Diggin' holes

Mamma and her boys

My two wonderful sons.  Look at that chunky baby!

Sam Laughing

This evening, while I was giving Sam a bath he started laugh.  We have had tons of smiles from him, but this was his first true giggle/laugh.  It was one of the best sounds I have ever heard!  I was able to catch a bit of it on camera.  He was, of course, was doing it better before I got the camera out.  The video is a little shaky-I had a 2-year old trying to help me.

Surgery for Sam

Disclaimer:  One day, years from now, my son will not appreciate the subject of this post.  Sam-I'm sorry to discuss you man parts on the World Wide Web, but I can not tell the stories of your 'adventures' without including this one.  Please forgive me.  Love, Mom.


Sam was born with a short foreskin.  While this means nothing in our day-to-day life, it did mean that he couldn't have a traditional circumcision in the hospital and would have to have it done by a surgeon at around 6-months.  I have been worrying about this procedure since the moment I found out he would have to have it--which was, literally, about 2 minutes after he was born.  I asked Rob a hundred times if we could not do it or wait until he was like 15 to have it done.  He said "No."  Being as I don't have man parts, I guess I should follow his lead on this one.

We had our appointment on Tuesday with a General Surgeon; I had been looking forward to this appointment for a while so that I could get some questions answered and decide how freaked out I needed to be.  Lets just say the appointment was less than stellar.  The surgeon was an ass.  He had zero bed-side manner.  Zero.

It began by him asking why we were there, so I told him.  He then examined Sam and followed with his 5 second explanation of the surgery, it went something like this: "There is a 1 in 100 chance he could end up with an infection or scaring.  If you want to do it we can schedule now or you can come back to schedule later.  Any questions?"  Seriously?  Yes, I have questions.  When I asked him about what type of anesthesia would be used, he said:  "General.  You'll see the anesthesiologist the morning of surgery."  When I asked what the complications were he said: "I already explained them to you" (Oh, that's what that was!) "As far as complications from anesthesia-you'll meet with the anesthesiologist the day of surgery."  I guess that ended our question and answer portion of the program.  As he left he room, to send in his scheduler, Rob said, "I don't like him."  I didn't either.

I realize that in the grand scheme of things, this surgery is not a big deal.  I felt blessed sitting in the waiting room--blessed that there were no tubes attached to my son, that he wasn't in a wheelchair, that he was happy and smiling.  I count my blessings everyday that I have happy, healthy children.  Especially in the last few weeks--a friend of a friend lost their son to leukemia a couple of weeks ago and another friend had a son born with muscular atrophy (he's spent most of his life in Children's Mercy).  I know that a simple procedure to circumcise my son, is not a big deal to this doctor, but its still my BABY.  I wanted him to give a damn, and I'm not sure he did.

None the less, his surgery is scheduled for December 9th.  Part of me really wants to find another doctor.  The other part knows he will do a fine job, and really it is the anesthesiologist I should be worried about...I'll meet him the day of surgery.  So for the next 3 months I will continue to worry and hold my son a little tighter.

Gotta Wear Shades

This kid cracks me up!  The past couple of weeks he has been obsessed with his "eyes" also known as sunglasses.  He even had to wear them to bed the other day.

Too cool!

He had a sinus infection and was having to use a nebulizer