A whole lotta pictures--Happy Thanksgiving!

Saturday I packed up and brought the kids to my parents' house for the week. Man, packing for myself and two kids for an entire week is insane! I had to bring the boppy, bouncy chair, play mat, nursing pillow, 2 suitcases of clothes, diapers for both, all of Nate's trains, all our medicine, all of Georgia's hairbows :) ... we completely overtook my parents' house.

Saturday night we went out to eat, and Nate did a great job using his spoon (an emerging skill).

He had taken a nap on the way there, so with all the excitement, he was up until midnight. And has followed that schedule all week so far! Craaaazy.

Here are some pictures from Sunday.

I caught her rolling!

Monday, my mom and I took the kids to Huntington to get their Christmas pictures made and to do a little shopping. THAT was interesting! Georgia didn't want to smile, which is very unlike her. We did everything we could think of to make her smile, and she just wouldn't. Plus she kept sliding down in whatever thing they put her in to prop her up, so we were constantly readjusting her or spotting her in case she decided to roll off. Nate also did not want to smile. Or put his arm around Georgia or hold her. The photographer had them on this platform a couple feet off the ground, and he actually fell off and I caught him in mid air, so he was really uneasy up there. Finally, after two photographers, one assistant, and a mama and Granna doing the silliest things we could think of--oh, and I had to feed Georgia mid-session--we got one good picture of Nate, one good one of Georgia, and one good one of the two of them together. The photographer acted like she was going to keep shooting, and my mom and I said, That's good! We're done! It was rough. However, the rest of the day went really well. Nate was an ANGEL when we were shopping. We shuffled him all over the mall and then to Target all day long, and he didn't throw a single tantrum. And of course Georgia was good as long as I kept her belly full. It was a fun day. I'll post the Christmas pictures when I can. I ordered way too many, as usual.

Tuesday, we went to my great-aunt Jean's house to visit with family. Nate had soooo much fun. Kim sang him silly songs, and Cathy and George played ball endlessly with him. That night and ever since, he's told me, "They need to come over!" He doesn't really remember everyone's names, but he loved them. :)

Bruce is notorious for falling asleep at family gatherings. He and Georgia took a nap. :)

Here are some of Georgia from Wednesday.

Look how strong she is! This girl loves standing, and she's so strong she can do it with just holding your hands. She's not even 4 months old yet!

And here's our Thanksgiving Day. This is my cousin Nicole with chunky Georgia!

A new skill for Nate--standing up from sitting in the floor, without holding on to a wall or something, and picking stuff up off the ground.

Nate just loooooves his uncle Lucas. :)

Nate and Georgia with cousin Cade. Nate is having so much fun playing with Cade. He's constantly begging him to play ball or trains, and Cade is teaching him to play hide and seek. Nate goes around saying "Where is she?" (He's not clear on his pronouns yet.)

Three years ago, Nate had his first bite of food on Thanksgiving Day. So we decided to make it a tradition and give Georgia her first bite of food today. It was mashed potatoes, and she was very confused.

She just held it in her mouth for a couple of minutes, then started spitting it out.
Nate liked it though! We had an awesome dinner--so good we've all been back for leftovers a couple times.

We've had such a fun week here, and poor Nate is playing himself ragged. He wakes up around 8:30, runs as fast as he can until he passes out around 5, then wakes up and stays up until midnight. Today he didn't get that nap, so he was especially fun to be around. He was miserable until I took him to bed around 9, and he was asleep within a couple of minutes.

There's 15 minutes left of Thanksgiving Day, but I am thankful every day for my family. I'm so thankful for my parents and inlaws who are such an important part of my and my kids' lives. I'm thankful for a husband who works hard so I can raise our kids at home during these early years. And I'm so unbelievably thankful for my children. God is so good, and I'm thankful for his unfathomable love.

There's such a thing as too much fun

I've finally recuperated enough from Wednesday to blog about it. :) Blake decided to take the day off. I really can't remember the last time he took a whole day off, so we wanted to make sure we did something fun. I suggested going to the train store we'd never been to in Lexington. Then I remembered that Wednesday was also the day that parents could eat lunch with their kids in the cafeteria at school, so it was a great day for him to be off. Then ... I remembered that Nate also had PT at 8 that morning, so it would be a long day, but we would just make it work.


So we started out at PT at 8, and Nate did a good job. He was fine when I dropped him off at school and was playing trains with Justin. I came home and got Georgia ready. Didn't she look pretty?





Well, she didn't even get to go to lunch because as soon as we walked in, they said that other kids weren't allowed in the cafeteria because they wanted parents to just focus on their preschoolers. So the ladies in the office were very excited to babysit such a pretty little girl. She was good and just talked to them for a little while and fell asleep.

When Nate's class came down the hallway, he wasn't with them. We figured he had just lagged behind a little, but after a few minutes, we went down to his room where he was having a meltdown with two other little boys because they didn't want to wear their Indian costumes to the cafeteria. :) We got him to settle down, and we all went down to the cafeteria together. We had a nice lunch together, but we could tell Nate was already getting tired and was on edge.


After school (he gets out at 12:30) we headed out to Lexington, which takes about an hour. As expected, Nate fell asleep in the truck. I figured he'd be hungry when he woke up, so we talked about where we could eat, and I remembered that Gatti Town (pizza and games) is close to the train store and that would be fun for Nate ... and Blake. :) Well, Nate was in a terrible mood when he woke up, so he had fun in Gatti Town, but he was throwing fits over every little thing. He especially didn't want to leave, but we reminded him we were going to the TRAIN STORE!!

Okay, this store is like Thomas heaven. It was amazing. Nate was thrilled! He kept saying "I love here!" In the front they had all the Thomas stuff you could buy. In the middle of the store they had two rooms with a ride-on Thomas, a big screen TV playing Thomas movies, and two train tables that they use for Thomas birthday parties. Then in the back they had a big model train layout.

Very serious about trains.

They have the same mural that Nate has in his room. :)

Georgia giving me a "look." I can see her as a teenager here.

Watching brother play trains.

Shopping. :)

We let him pick out any train in the store (within reason--there was some expensive ones there) that he wanted, and he chose the cheapest plastic non-Thomas train in the whole store, haha. We've named him Teddy. We also got a Thomas sweatshirt and an "I Love Toy Trains" movie.

So then it was time to leave. We knew he wouldn't want to go, but it was getting late and we'd been there foreeeever. So I told him we had five more minutes left and to pick out what one last thing he wanted to do. He chose looking at the model train. After five minutes, we rushed him out of the store so the crying didn't start until he was in the truck. :) But then we were in rush hour traffic. And Nate does not like traffic, you know, so that just made things worse. I don't really know how to describe how bad this tantrum was. I think he said, "We need to go back to the train store" at least 400 times. I felt myself starting to twitch. :) And we could NOT get out of traffic. It was bad, bad, bad. Blake said, "Why is he acting like this?" Well, he had PT, then school, where we came for a special lunch, then we went to Gatti Town, then the train store! That is WAY too much fun packed into one day, and Nate's head was spinning. I do hope Blake will take another day off soon, and we'll learn from our mistake and have a laid back day at home.

Another decision that came out of that day was that Nate's schedule is just way too packed in general. I had concerns about this when he started school, so we rearranged it a little and decided to wait and see if he adjusted, but it's still too much. He has school 4 half days a week, plus three therapies and music class. Although he loves all of these things and I think all of them are so good for him, he's just tired all the time. So something has to go. Music class may seem like the obvious choice, but he just loves it so much, and it's the only activity that's just fun and doesn't have anything to do with therapy. It's a nice change. So I decided we should drop OT on Fridays. It's the least necessary therapy right now. Yesterday I asked his OT Katie if she would assess him to see exactly where he's delayed so we could work on those things at home. She started the assessment and we'll finish it in a couple weeks. One of the things on the assessment was stringing beads, and Nate did awesome with that--much better than a few months ago. He has that very important skill mastered. :) Another was to build a tower 10 blocks high. Well, Nate wanted to use two of the blocks at the base to make it more stable. So he didn't pass that test, but I think he was far more clever than it was asking him to be. Anyway, we'll drop Friday OT in a few weeks, and he will ride the horse on Wednesday mornings at PT. I hope the PTs schedule will open up soon so we can move that.

A couple cute stories. Nate currently loves this book his uncle Lucas got him about trucks. We've read it a lot lately, and last night he was "reading" it to me. And he was surprisingly accurate! For example, on one page, it has the word "SPLASH" written in large print, and Nate said splash. I thought, wow, he's recognizing words! So I pointed to "SPLASH" and asked Nate what that word said. He thought about it and said, "It says ... I wuv you." Hahaha! and Awww.

The kids and I are going to my parents' house today for the week, and Blake is going to join us on Wednesday after work. This morning I was telling Nate our plans, and I said, "And I bet Pop will play trains with you." He said, "And Granna will wike my new train Teddy. She'll say Wow!" :) So cute.

And now I must go get everyone bathed and pack up all the stuff we're going to need for a weeklong trip! It could take me all day.

Happy Monday

What's new with Georgia:

Georgia is having a great time with her new play mat. She lays in there looking at all the toys, batting at them and grabbing and pulling on them, and she especially loves looking in the mirror and talking to the baby in there. :) She coos and gurgles and wants so badly to talk to us. I always crack up when she's in her bouncy chair, because she is so intent on playing. When Nate used this same bouncy chair, he'd lay there contentedly watching the bubbles and fish. I wondered why they called it a bouncy chair, because he didn't bounce in it. Well, this girl does! She bounces and kicks the toys to make the bubbles and fish go. She has such a look of concentration on her face, it's so funny. I think I can already tell that Georgia is naturally a very determined little person. But she's a good baby and sleeps very well--usually about 6 hours a night. She is smiling and laughing ("Heee") a lot and is usually pretty happy as long as her belly is full. Here are a couple of recent pictures of her in her bumbo.

She was watching me make spaghetti. (Yes, I know you're not supposed to leave them on the counter in this, but she was in the middle and there was no way she could jump off.)


And this was Friday night looking at the toys in her play mat.

What's going on with Nate:

Nate's speech--which I didn't think was delayed at all to begin with--has improved so much since he started school. He speaks almost exclusively in full sentences now, and his pronunciation is very clear. He's learning lots of new words for things too. I try to figure out why he'd have the need to learn the word "slug" at school, but I guess he did!

He's working on going from sitting on the floor to standing up without holding on to anything. Friday at hippotherapy, he was getting up off the floor and had a car in each hand, and he stood right up! That's the first time he'd done that alone, and I was so proud! This afternoon I saw him try it again while his hands were full (otherwise, he reaches for something--having toys in his hand distracts him), and he got all the way up but then fell down. But he's making great progress there. I didn't want to start him back in soccer until he could stand up by himself because parents aren't on the field in the 3 year old class and he wouldn't have help for that. I think his school PT is working on that a lot, because today I asked him what he and Miss Ann worked on today, and he showed me some toe touches. :) His Green Hill PTs are focusing a lot on straightening his feet and legs when he walks and climbing steps, so I think all the bases are being covered really well.

Yesterday we went to the mall for a couple hours, and Nate got to play at the little "boat" playground. This time last year, he had to crawl around the boat and couldn't go down the slide without help. On his birthday this year (June 25), we went to the boat with Nate's First Steps PT for his last session with her. I remember we were trying to get him to walk up to the boat holding on to the rope rails with one hand, and he was having a hard time with it. So yesterday, we were just tickled to see him running around this boat by himself. He could step up the small step all by himself, then up the ramp, up some steps, and down the slide, where he'd say, "I wanna do it again!" and he'd run off again. To see him running around with the other kids is just awesome. I don't think we'll ever take that for granted.

What's new with Blake and Colleen:

Blake had 20 hours of training last week, which meant he had to work 20 hours more than his typical 50-60 hours! It was a rough week. We were both getting pretty burnt out and not getting to spend much time as a family. So yesterday he just worked a couple hours and then we all went to the mall. I got to get my hair cut! That's exciting because I can usually only get away about 3 times a year for hair cuts. We had a good time together. Then Blake took the kids home, and I went to dinner with the ladies from my Bible Study! It was a really nice evening.

Some of you may remember that around this time last year, the Spina Bifida Association was making a video of our little friend Brock, and we were there for some of the filming. Well, I saw the final video, but it was on a CD, and somehow they made it impossible to share online. A couple of weeks ago, one of the ladies on the SB board pointed this out to me. It's a video made with some clips of that original video, and Nate and I are on it for a second. :) Here's the link:

http://www.monkeysee.com/play/15502-non-medical-treatments-for-spina-bifida

Nate's music program--CUTE CUTE CUTE!

I might be biased but I don't think so--Nate was by far the cutest kid in the preschool Thanksgiving music program! No contest. :) I took some videos.

Nate was the last to enter the gym, and we saw him come in in his stroller. Blake and I were both so upset thinking he would have to do the show in his stroller, but they got him out at the door. Later they told us they just wanted him to save his energy for the show. He was so cute when he saw we were there.

(If you're viewing this on facebook or email, go to the blog to see the videos: http://whatnatesaidtoday.blogspot.com/)

All the kids introduced themselves, and I was sure Nate wouldn't do it, but he did! And everyone said, "Awwww."

Here's where he starts to get into the music. I didn't get it in any of the videos, but Nate was standing at the end of a very straight line of about 30-40 kids.

Then he went rogue and decided, forget the line! I need to DANCE!

That boy next to Nate is Justin, and he is a very big 4 year old. They call him the "gentle giant" cause he's bigger than the rest of the kids, but he's very sweet to them, especially Nate. The whole time, he seemed to want to do whatever Nate was doing. Sometimes Nate loses his balance and staggers around a bit, and Justin does it too, not to make fun of him but just cause he thinks it's a funny gag Nate is playing. :)

So, there's my shy kid. :)

Pictures from the weekend

Here are some pictures from this weekend that I didn't even know I had! I gave Blake my camera to take pictures, but I didn't actually expect he would do it! :)

Let's see, a quick update on what's been going on here ...

Friday morning we didn't go to music class because Nate wouldn't stay in the time out he got because he was pulling my hair. At OT that afternoon, Katie put a sensory vest on him and he was wierdly calm and focused the whole session. And I averted a bead disaster by warning Katie before she gave him the 800 tiny beads that he WILL throw them everywhere.

Saturday afternoon, Blake took Nate to see some trains. One of the men in our parents Bible study works for CSX and knows Nate loves trains, so he invited them out to watch the trains for awhile. Nate was totally enthralled. He had the greatest time. Then we went to church on Saturday evening for a change, and Nate actually stayed in children's church! That night, Blake started feeling really sick, and I developed pink eye. I've never in my life had pink eye until now. I blame it on preschool.

Sunday Blake took the kids over to Brian and Sunny's house for a visit with Papaw and Grandma. I didn't go because I thought about how mad I would be if someone came to my house with an eye looking like mine did, haha. Then my parents came by that afternoon. Nate had such a big day, and he fell asleep sitting up on the couch within 10 minutes of my parents leaving.

I've continued my organizing kick, and I got nearly 3 full hoursto dedicate to it when Elizabeth came over Monday afternoon. I got so much done! The whole upstairs is organized, I am so on top of my laundry it's ridiculous, and I'm getting rid of a bunch of stuff we don't need anymore. Feels good.

This morning, Blake woke up with an ear infection. So Georgia and I took Nate to school while Blake went to the doctor (he usually takes Nate to school). Nate was in a terrible mood when I picked him up from school. His teacher said he was tired and wouldn't even walk when it was time to leave. He came home and was crying over every little thing (he was actually crying "meow" at a cat, it was the strangest thing), so I put him down for a nap. He cried for over an hour. Even when I went up and told him he had the choice of laying there and crying or to stop crying and come downstairs and play, he chose to cry. And he wasn't in pain or anything, just felt like whining and crying.

Then at aquatherapy this afternoon, I was getting Nate changed in the therapy pool locker room. This is where I've changed him every time since we began except for once--someone told me that children weren't allowed in that locker room, so I tried the other, but it was far away and Nate fell on the slippery floor trying to walk to the pool, so I decided we'd use the other one anyway. No one has ever said anything to me until today. She pointed at the sign and said, "Adults only" in a really snotty tone. I said, "He has trouble walking, and this room is closer to the pool." She started saying something snotty back to me, but I was already out the door behind Nate. First of all, she doesn't work there. Second, she doesn't use the therapy pool, so why was she in that locker room anyway. But my main question is--why does she care? Someone told me the rule was mainly to keep the swim team teenagers out of this locker room where the little old ladies change. Why would anyone care if a 3 year old is in there? Ugh, it's really no big deal, but it just totally annoyed me today. Then as we were leaving, Nate fell flat on his face and busted his mouth and nose and got a big knot on his forehead. THEN he put his finger in Georgia's car seat base as I was putting the car seat in and smashed his finger. After all the screaming of the day, I couldn't wait until bed time!

Thursday is Nate's Thanksgiving music program at school, and I'm so excited! Should be cute. Then Monday is picture day (yay!) and parents get to come have lunch with them. This school stuff is fun. :)

SuperNate and WonderGeorgia!

Hahahaha! Isn't that awesome? My Aunt Pam gave Nate this costume a long time ago, but he's just now into dressing up. He said, "Wook, I can fly down the stairs!" Noooooo! I think it's kinda cool that you can see his scar through the back of the Superman costume. He is certainly my superhero.

I am on an organizing kick, so I spent most of yesterday in Georgia's room sorting through the clothes that are too small for her now and getting out the 3-6 month clothes. Thanks to my mom, she had TWELVE PAIRS of pink pants! That's just the pink ones! My mom should not be allowed on ebay. Anyway, I was trying hats on her to see wha still fit, and this was just too cute.

It was very .... interesting .... to try to keep Nate and Georgia occupied while I worked in Georgia's room. Nate's idea of fun was taking the stacks of neatly folded clothes and throwing them everywhere! He actually got three time outs within an hour for doing that. At one point, he said he wanted to play downstairs, so I said, "Okay, you can either play by yourself in the toy room downstairs, or you can go in your room and play with your books." He said, "Hmmm. How bout another good choice."

Nate found this huge book our insurance sent us about how to take care of a baby and was flipping through it (he loves big books, bigger the better). He said, "Mama, this is a book about trick or treating!" I said, "Oh yeah, can you read it to me?" So he flipped to a page and said, "One day, trick or treating ... (mumble mumble mumble)." Flipped about 40 pages, "Trick or treating ... (mumble mumble mumble)." Flipped a few more pages, "Trick or treating ... (mumble mumble mumble). The end."

He also made me laugh when I got him a cup of water and he said, "Mama, I spilled it all over!" I told him it was okay, I would clean it up. He said, "Poor me." Ha!

Georgia is getting so much better at tummy time! She now props herself up on her elbows.

Thump thump thump thump AGHHHHHH!

Nate fell down the stairs. :(

I was on the phone with my mom, and Blake was getting ready for work. Nate wanted to go upstairs to see daddy, and I let him go because he has crawled up and down those stairs a thousand times without a single incident. But when he was coming back down, I guess the ear infection affected his balance, so when he got halfway down he started rolling. After I got him calmed down enough to talk to me, I could assess that he didn't seem to have hurt anything except his handsome little face. He had a carpet burn on his cheek, and his nose was bleeding a little. For the rest of the morning, all he wanted to talk about was "I rolled down the stairs! I hurt my face. I started crying." Poor guy. To make matters worse, he fell and ran into things all day long. His balance was really off because of his ear.

His ear is still hurting, and now the other one is starting to hurt too, which the doctor said might happen because it looked "suspicious" when he checked them. His nose is really stuffy now too, and he sometimes has a cough. So we're loading him up on motrin, sudafed, pulmicort, albuterol, and fluids, and I find myself sleeping in the floor beside his bed at various points in the middle of the night. He hasn't been to school the last couple of days. Yesterday instead of aquatherapy we did PT in the clinic and he did fine, but I cancelled his 8 am PT today. Instead, he spent the morning building a tower out of jars from the bottom shelf of the fridge. :)

Starting the week off right

Yesterday Nate got kicked out of Sunday School again. It might have had something to do with all the candy from the night before. He made it to chapel this time, but when they started singing he lost it. Oh well, we'll keep trying.

For the rest of the day, he cried, "I need a sucker!" about four thousand times. I thought I'd pull my hair out. Another favorite: "I need to trick or treat again!"

Since they were both dressed up so cute, I thought I'd take a few pictures.

What can I say, he enjoys helping with the laundry.

I asked Nate if he'd like to hold Georgia for a picture, and he was very excited.

Still pretty excited, but Georgia was getting less excited.

Both are losing interest.

Nate said "I'm done" as he pushed her away.

Georgia is getting soooo big.

So this morning, Georgia rolled over, from back to belly, for the first time! I was so proud! She's only 3 months and a couple days old. Then later in the day, I laid her on the couch to jump up and stop Nate from throwing beans all over the living room and put him in time out .... and she rolled off the couch. Oops. She was fine, but MAD.

This afternoon, Nate said he was tired and wanted to lay down on the couch to watch "toy trains" which is this extremely boring documentary about these old guys who build model trains in their basements. He loves this show. Anyway, when he laid down, he said, "Mama, my ear hurts." At first I just pretended I didn't hear that, because I really, really did not want to hear that. But he said it again a few minutes later. He kept pointing at that ear, and he was whining that it hurt. So I called the nurse at the pediatrician's office to see what I should do. She suggested I give him motrin and call in the morning to get an appointment. I asked if they could get him in this evening. It was 4:30, and they close at five. But she asked the doctor, and when he heard it was Nate, he said to come on in. I told Nate we would go see the doctor and he would see what was wrong with his ear and fix it. Turns out it's a pretty bad ear infection, and the doctor said the eardrum might burst. He got prescriptions for an antibiotic and for numbing drops, but the pharmacy won't have the drops until tomorrow. As we were leaving the doctor's office, Nate said, "Mama, my ear hurts again. We need to go see the doctor again to see what's wrong." Aww, he thought the doctor was going to fix it right then. I should have been more clear. :) A little motrin made him feel better to go to sleep, and I hope the antibiotic starts working quickly. In the meantime, he won't be able to get in the pool tomorrow for aquatherapy.

One quick cute story. Nate has been playing with his little kitchen and play food a lot lately. He puts things like a plastic chicken leg, a waffle, some ice cream, and a tomato on a plate and says, "Mama, I made you a special treat!" Today he was playing with the food and started pretending to give his sock monkey a chicken leg, and I saw some plastic bananas sitting right beside him. I said, "Hey, Nate, do you know what monkeys eat?" He said very seriously, "Sandwiches."