3 years ago today....

Three years ago today....

i was in labor and delivery at SWWMC.


i almost lost my son


i "gave birth" to a healthy 8lb 7oz baby boy, thanks to the fast acting staff at SWWMC's birthing unit and the NICU team


chris became a daddy


i became a mommy



Three years ago today i knew my world had changed, but little did i know HOW MUCH it had changed :)

I love my big boy so much, and he will always be my baby :)

Newborn:


First Birthday:



Second Birthday:



Third Birthday :

Santa...

So Alex is 2 1/2 (well technically 2 3/4 lol) which is an awkward age for introducing Santa in my opinion. He is young enough to understand the concept of doing certain things for certain holidays (ex: fireworks for 4th of July, costumes for Halloween, turkeys for thanksgiving, etc) so we introduced Frosty the Snowman (who Alex is OBSESSED with by the way. And no not just any snowman will do... has to be Frosty.) and Santa. He understands that these are fictional characters that show up on decorations and in movies... but when it came time for me to take him to the mall to meet Santa, i ran into an unexpected roadblock. We got all dressed up and ready to go and left the house. Alex promptly ran into our yard to our big stand up/blow up Santa and said "Mommy i found him!".... he didn't understand that Santa was a "real" person. So i tried explaining it to him but i could tell it just wasn't clicking in his head. We did the pics with Santa, which made him super shy, and headed home. It was at that point that i decided that Santa would not be bringing Alex presents this year. I was afraid that he'd get scared that someone comes into his house at night and leaves stuff behind (which for Alex would be a rational fear lol). So after discussing it with my parents we decided Alex would just get presents from family members (no Santa) and we knew he'd be THRILLED that way and never know what he was missing.

Then i turned on the Christmas episodes of Caillou tonight and it all changed. Caillou explained several times that Santa is a man that comes to your house on Christmas and leaves presents under your Christmas tree, and puts goodies in your stocking. Then he leaves and does it for every other boy and girl in the world. Alex just stared at the TV. never said a word or made a sound. Then the next episode came on and Caillou's friends were explaining their holiday traditions (one was Jewish and one was Indian (i think)) so he explained Santa again. Alex just stared. So when it was all said and done i asked Alex if he wanted Santa to bring him presents on Christmas and he promptly answered yes..... right now. lol so i said we had to wait 8 days until Christmas and then Santa would bring the presents. I asked him what he wanted Santa to bring and he said "a big caterpillar that doesn't make noise... like Coopers!" (Cooper is his best friend at daycare. They've been besties since they were 6mo old). I then asked if he wanted a new book and he said yes. Then he said he wanted Santa to bring him candy canes to eat lol. So maybe we WILL do a few presents from Santa this year after all!

To those of you with toddlers, what are you doing about Santa? have you introduced him as just a man or as a present giver? Are you doing just one present from Santa or all of them?

Allergy Testing- Round 2

Here's our history with allergies for Alex:
At ten months old he was diagnosed with a peanut and soy allergy. We've religiously kept all peanuts away from him and tried our hardest to keep soy away (which is extremely hard by the way, since it is in EVERYTHING from salad dressings, to chicken nuggets, to anything with protein in it) too.

Today we went in for retesting to see if he had maybe outgrown the allergies since they had initially figured he would. I had to wake alex up from his nap so that we would make it to the appointment on time, so he was SUPER cranky :( we got there and he's usually a champ at dr appointments; lets them listen to his back, chest, ears, etc willingly... but not today. he cried and kicked and yelled... and that was just the check in stuff lol. so i took his shirt off and he was allowed to lay against me while she did the skin pricks and put the oils on the right spots for the testing. Now let me say first off that alex has a very high pain tolerance, he typically doesnt even cry during shots anymore... but when she did the 20 pokes with the oil he screamed like a newborn :( it was really sad because i couldnt touch his back for 30 min while it sat there so i had to resort to rubbing his arms and bribing him with snacks lol. after about 20 min he FINALLY calmed down and after 30 we were finally done. the allergist came in and reviewed everything and gave us the results:
Peanut allergy= NEGATIVE!!!
Soy allergy= NEGATIVE!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D
Weeds allergy= positive :(
Mold allergy= positive :(

she said that molds are kind of hard in the northwest because its so moist here most of the year and then its warm the rest of it so mold grows freely. i went through his bath stuff and threw away his Diego bath mat and my shower curtain which both needed to be replaced anyways since they were starting to get moldy. then i used bleach water and hardcore cleaned all of his bath toys which actually disgusted me when i got to the rubber duckies :| fyi to all of you parents reading this, i suggest you take HOT HOT water and suck it up into the duck, shake it really hard for a min and then squirt the water out... if mold comes out either toss the duck or clean it. what i did was toss the worst one and then with the other three i sucked the bleach water up into the duck and shook the shit out of it, squirted it out, and repeated that until no more mold came out. then i filled it with the bleach water again and let it sit for a few min while i cleaned the other toys. then i rinsed it out. i never thought to go through like that and clean the bath toys!! wow. so anyways the allergist said we have to SLOWLY introduce peanut products to him since he's literally had no exposure to them before... so we were told to put a little dab of peanut butter on his back when we got home and leave it on for 30 min. if there was a hive there after we wiped it off then no peanuts for a few more months. there was no hive! :) so i put a little bit (like 1/8th of a tsp lol) on a spoon and gave it to him... a direct quote was "MMMMMMMMM!!!! I LOVE peanut butter!!!" hahaha so we did that a few more times and then monitored him really close this evening. so far so good :) yay!! i seriously cant explain how happy i am!! the soy is more tricky since salad dressings do make his face break out in hives so i have to find soy-free salad dressing products (aka the powder mixes) and be careful that soy isnt one of the first main ingredients. if it's further down the list then we're fine to let him have it. Phew!

ok that is all now.. i really need to write more frequently in here :)

-B

Alex's surgery today

we checked in at the hospital at 7am this morning and Alex was in a great mood. he kept asking for juice, milk and water but since he cant have even a sip of fluids before surgery we had to keep telling him he could have it later... then he asked for coffee lol :) (there were lots of adults drinking it around us that's why he asked... he's never had it. just to clarify ;)) so we get all checked in and he's changed into a gown and at 8:20ish he was wheeled into the surgical room. it took an hour and a half to remove his tonsils, the upper half of his adenoids (I'll explain in a minute), and his eyebrow cyst. The eyebrow cyst had "roots" that when across his whole eyebrow, down into the eyelid, and wrapped around the tear gland (which is weird because when the incision drains, it's draining tears lol). So when the surgeon went into his mouth he saw that Alex's uvula (which is the little dangling thing in your throat if you're not used to its technical term) is actually a little split... kind of like a lizards tongue. i googled it and its technical name "bifid uvula" or a cleft uvula. and speaking of cleft things the roof of Alex's mouth (the hard palate) isn't like most people's... ours in the middle curves downwards toward the tongue and Alex's curves upwards... he said it looks as though Alex was going to have a cleft palate but then it healed closed at the last minute. so anyways everything is ok but if he had the whole adenoids removed he would have a severe speech impediment... so he removed the larger upper half and although there is a risk that they'll grow back, he doesnt feel it'll be an issue. the rest of the day was great, he napped normally, played great, ate and drank like a champ and so they released us to go home :) 12 1/2 hours later that is. haha

goodnight world! i'll keep you posted and i'm going to upload pictures onto facebook

My disclaimer :)

So i'm going to use this blog as a journal... that you all can see. There will be gramatical errors and spelling mistakes and i dont care. There will also be foul language sometimes if i feel it fits so please take it with a grain of salt.