Pool Party

We went to the Taylor's this afternoon for a pool party and BBQ. Uncle Allen made awesome pork ribs! Both boys had fun swimming and are now exhausted. I think that Lee and I will have an easy night.

Two beers...

and Lee lets me buy the boys anything they want at Toys R Us! We went there after dinner this evening and each boy got to pick out one thing. Caleb put several toys back including three Hulk toys, Little People fire engine, and Little People police car. He was content to leave the store without a toy until he saw the Little People Garage! He went to the box and started to take it off the shelf. He said "off" and "pay" when we tried to put it back. (He had been saying "back" to all the other toys.) He loves his garage. This is further evidence that we have a future valet on our hands.

We picked out "Duke" for Graysen. We hope that it will be his comfort animal just like Geoffrey is Caleb's comfort animal. We had to pick out one that did not have bead eyes so that he can sleep with it and we don't have to worry about him chewing out the eyes.

Nap Time

All four of us had to wake up at 5 AM this morning in order to make it to dentist appointments starting at 8 AM. Although Lee gets up at this time everyday, the boys and I do not. So, the boys and I indulged in a three hour nap today to catch up on our sleep. (I know that we are spoiled.)

Since Caleb will be 3 in six months, we scheduled his first dentist appointment. It will be on January 15th and Lee and I will have ours the day before. That way, Caleb can watch the dental hygienist work on us and learn about his visit. I think that Lee and I will have to do a lot of practice with Caleb before the visit. He was offered a ride in the neat chair, and he did not want to go near it. I have no doubts that he will be terrified. They hygienist gave him a new toothbrush today which he loved. He carried it home with him and brushed his teeth as soon as he got home. The hygienist told me that 6 months is a long time, so hopefully she is right and we will have a smooth visit in January.

Caleb Teaches Graysen About Cars

I put Graysen in his Bumbo seat so that he could watch Caleb. Later, I heard Caleb saying, "red car, blue car, police car, truck, ..." as he showed Graysen each vehicle. It was really cute to watch him teach Graysen. Both boys love watching each other and get along great!

I spent today preparing for Graysen's heart catherization. The packet of paperwork came this past weekend, so today was spent reading it, making reservations, call insurance, etc... The cath is scheduled for July 29th. During the catherization, doctors will look at the condition of Graysen's heart. They will use the information that they gather to determine what action needs to be taken next and how long they can wait until his next surgery. After the cath, the doctors will send a "surgery request" to the surgeon. He will then look over the cath and determine what surgery needs to be performed and when. I was told to expect a phone call about two weeks after cath at which time they will tell us our expected surgery date. (Based on all of our doctor visits and last surgery, the surgeon told us to expect the Rastelli procedure within the first year. I do not think that we will find out anything different from the heart cath. The purpose of Graysen's cath is to determine the timing of the surgery more than the type.) Also, as a note, MUSC told me to expect to be bumped several times even after the surgery date is set. Nothing is set until he rolls into the OR for surgery. We learned that from our first experience...

The good news is that Graysen continues to be a super star heart baby! He is doing great and hasn't gotten sick even once. He is a very strong and resilient baby.

Growing Up

Both boys are growing up. Graysen is teething and is trying to move around. He is very close to turning over, but hasn't done it yet. I think that he will turn from his back to his belly by the end of July.

Caleb is growing up also. He will not allow me to pick out his clothes anymore. He wants to pick them out. I ironed an outfit for the park today. He told me to put it back when I went to put it on him. He went into his closet and brought out his blue collard shirt and navy shorts. I didn't think that it was the best outfit for the park, but you can see by the pictures that he won the battle. He must have been trying to impress Emily.

Future Parents?

Katelin spent the day with us today. Caleb enjoys playing with her. Both of them were really into taking care of the baby doll today. It was really cute to watch them interact together.

Back Home

We are enjoying being back at home with our two boys. Here is a picture of Lee introducing Graysen to music. Caleb is busy playing what Lee and I call the "parking lot game." We think that we may have a future valet on our hands. He spends hours each day meticulously parking matchbox cars as he observes the parking lot from the window.

We are celebrating Lee's birthday this evening. We plan to go to his favorite pizza place which has great pizza and good beer.

Washington D.C.

Lee and I are home from D.C. We had a great trip. We loved being in the city and seeing all of the great sights. There were so many things to look at, that Lee ended up taking 500 pictures during the trip.

My mom survived the week. I know that she is happy to be heading back to Florida today. I think that taking care of the two boys was a lot of work. I know that Caleb and Graysen will both miss her and that I have some un-spoiling to do over the next few days.

Getting Ready for D.C.

Lee and I are leaving for Washington, D.C. in the morning. We will be gone for one week and are looking forward to our vacation. Grandma passed her two days of training and Graysen warmed up to her. We will miss the boys a lot, but know that Grandma will be safe since Batman will be protecting her. This will be my last blog until we return home next weekend.

Graysen

Graysen is getting used to Grandma. I think that he will be fine when we leave on Saturday. We went to the pediatric cardiologist today. The doctor said that Graysen is doing great! He doesn't have any concerns. Graysen weighed 15 Lbs and is 24.5 inches long. He is growing quickly.

Milestone!

Today I had a personal breakthrough. I actually changed Poseidon's water! This was a big step for me since I have been afraid of fish my entire life. Poseidon lived through it so it was a success. As Erik says, "It is impossible to kill a beta fish." The only mishap was when I dropped three rocks down the garbage disposal. My bright idea was to turn on the disposal and try to flush the rocks down. That didn't sound very good. I ended up call maintenance and they came and fixed the disposal. The maintenance guy said that at least I wasn't as bad as the lady who dumped kitty litter down her commode.

Grandma arrived this evening. Caleb loves seeing his grandma. She is going to watch the boys for us while Lee and I go to DC next week. Unfortunately, Graysen is in a stage where he is VERY attached to his mama. He has two days to get used to grandma before we leave.

Grandma was planning on sleeping in our room while we were gone, so she was going to spend two nights on the couch. Last time that she was here she slept on an air bed in Caleb's room with him. I think that it was the most fun that Caleb ever had. Lee was in the process of putting Caleb to be tonight and he started crying, "Grandma, Grandma, ..." In the end she caved and her and Lee are setting up the bed as I type.

Summer Buzz Cut

Lee gave Caleb a summer buzz cut this evening. It was an experiment and we both agree that we like his hair better as a bowl cut. As a reward, he was given an entire bag of jelly beans. Caleb loves jelly beans!

Caleb's First Dance

Lisa and Emily came over today. Emily led Caleb in a slow dance. It was really cute. It was his first slow dance ever and he wasn't quite sure what to think. Emily looks like she is ready for "Dancing with the Stars." She is very good at dancing.

Worn Out!

Alexis, an EI (early interventionist) came yesterday to work with the boys. She will come once a week and work with Caleb on speech and Graysen on motor skills. Caleb had a blast and did very well. Graysen was not as happy or accommodating. He did not enjoy having to do exercises and work for an entire hour. Afterwards, I put him in his swing and he passed out.

Since our internet still does not work during the day, I am having to blog in the mornings. I can't wait until Thursday when we get DSL installed!

Bye Bye Charter

Our internet went down yesterday shortly after I blogged. That was the 7th day in a row that it went down for a long period of time. It only works reliably after 10 PM and in the mornings before 9 AM. I called AT&T yesterday and we will have DSL installed next Thursday. Until then, we will plan to use the internet in the mornings. It is somewhat frustrating, and Charter's customer service has been awful. I have spoken to about 10 different people in the past week and only one was polite and helpful, but all she could do was give me a credit. She couldn't fix the problem or tell me how long to expect the outages.

Caleb's speech evaluation went well. The speech pathologist was very impressed with his intelligence. He knows all of his letters, colors, and numbers. He also demonstrated an ability to make inferences. (She had pictures of situations like a broken bike or spilled food and asked, "How did the boy get hurt?" She also said that he was the calmest boy that she has ever seen and loved how sweet he is. He really is a very good-natured, easy-going boy. That being said, his speech tested at 1 year 10 months, so he is behind on expressive language skills. She will start regular therapy with him next Friday. I think that he will improve quickly since he is now receiving regular instruction in speech.

Unreliable Internet

I have been having trouble blogging because our internet connection has been unreliable. It goes down every day during the day until about 10 PM. It has happened consistently for the past six days. It only works reliably during the middle of the night and early morning. I have called Charter three times to understand the situation. They are unable to tell me what is going on or when I can expect it to be working again. (As a note, I am very disappointed with their customer service and technical service departments.) I asked for a refund for the six days that it did not work, and said that I would call every day that it was not working and ask for a refund for that day. That is all that I know to do. They gave me a refund for two weeks, I think as encouragement not to bother them every day. It is choppy again this morning, so it will crash soon. I plan to spend the day working on switching to DSL. We do not want to switch, but feel that we do not have a choice.

The past several days, Caleb has shown an increased interest in the Millenium Falcon. He played with it yesterday for several hours before he even touched a truck! His favorite character is R2D2, or "D2" as Caleb says. The main thing that we have been working on Caleb on is speech. He qualified for an early interventionist to come once a week and work with him. This morning he has an evaluation with a liscensced speech pathologist and will most likely quality for her to come on a weekly basis as well. Then, next Tuesday he has an evaluation with the school system to see if he qualifies to start in the school system at 3 years old. I think that he is fine, just slow with expressive language. I think that he will be caught up by the time that he starts kindergarten.

Graysen is doing well. He is a very happy baby. He goes back to the pediatric cardiologist next Thursday and we will get an update on his health. I anticipate that everything will be fine.

Last night I swear that Caleb said, "I love you" as I tucked him in last night. Lee said that it is a matter of how I interperted the sounds that came out of his mouth. I think Lee is just jelous because Caleb said, "door" when Lee told Caleb that he loved him.

Well, that is all that is going on with us. Time to research DSL before my internet crashes for the day.

Play Date

Alisha and Katelin came over for a play date today. All the kids had a lot of fun. Katelin wore out Caleb and Graysen, since both of the boys went down for a nap as soon as they left. I am enjoying an hour of peace and quiet while both boys nap.

My Two Boys

Today was a quiet day, so I was able to play with my two boys all day long. We have had a lot of fun reading, playing, and singing. Caleb even helped feed Graysen this afternoon. The highlight of Caleb's day was when a "big truck" came into the parking lot. He ran around the apartment yelling "big truck" and was very excited.

Summer Cookout

We spent the afternoon with Lisa, Todd, and Emily. These are a few pictures from the cookout. Caleb was scared of the baby pool, but he enjoyed eating a popsicle and playing in the water table. Emily likes to hold Graysen and sing to him. It was a fun afternoon.