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