CAR CRISIS!

A new development that has come about in the past week....CAR SEAT DRAMA! Jack was always a wonderful traveler, which was a blessing since we moved right after he was born and stayed on the road between Nashville and Cookeville A LOT. For the most part Wesley has been a great traveler...with just a few exceptions he would usually fall asleep in the car without much fuss....but starting on Thanksgiving Day and for the entire weekend he would FREAK OUT whenever we would put him in the car. I have no idea why...but he refuses to calm down and will cry and cry until we get him out, and then he will be perfectly fine. I have tried stopping to change his diaper, several times we have stopped so I could feed him....we have tried toys, songs, passy, even switching to a "big boy" convertible car seat...nothing has worked! On the ride home the other day from Nashville he cried the entire time except for the brief respite while we stopped for gas and I consoled him. Over the course of that trip it brought both me and Jack also to tears from the stress of it, and I think there may be fingernail marks in the steering wheel from Daddy's frustration. Maggie was the only one who stayed calm. I'm not sure what to do...I have heard from several friends that their kids did it too...but not much advice about what to do other than to turn up the music or offer headphones to Jack! I am looking into interactive mirrors or toys that might distract him, and we are hoping that his resolves BEFORE all our trips back and forth at Christmas time...or we may have to always travel after bedtime or do what Josh is suggesting to do, and have everyone come to us. If anyone has any advice or hope to give us, anything would be appreciated...this is SO STRESSFUL!

Happy 5 Months Baby Wesley

I took Wesley to the Dr a few days after his official 5 month birthday. He and Jack have been passing around a nasty cough, but Wesley's is taking a much longer time resolving. Thankfully through it all he hasnt seemed to feel bad AT ALL. At his visit he weighed in at a WHOPPING 19 pounds 1 ounce! At this point I was already feeding Jack cereal, but that was in the hopes of it helping him sleep through the night....which didnt happen for 6 more weeks....so I am not as eager to start that as early with Wesley since I now also know that starting solid foods with a baby takes FOREVER! I have a hard enough time getting things done and juggling these 2 boys to carve out an hour of my day to feed him any sooner than necessary! :) Besides, it's not like he is STARVING! His sleep at night is improving, there have been several nights lately when he has gone 6-8 hours in between feedings...which is GREAT...except that his last feeding before bed is usually around 6 or 7 pm which puts him still waking me up in the middle of the night. For a while I would wake him up just before my bed time to "top him off" but I notice (just like with Jack) that when I DONT do it, he sleeps a longer stretch...go figure. All I can figure is that I am interrupting his sleep rhythms or something. So I am trying a few other ways of finagling his feedings to see if I can get a bit more sleep at night...we'll see how well it works!
 Unlike his brother, Wesley is SO good at tummy time! Jack would not last very long at all, but Wesley does a great job, sometime staying on his tummy for 10 minutes or more! He used to roll over pretty consistently from tummy to back, but he hasnt done it in over a month now...not sure what that is all about. I'll just keep trying! It is so fun to watch him discover his hands and just watch them wiggle in front of his face. He is also learning how to put his hands and other objects into his mouth...and he's getting pretty good at it....he's also getting good at knocking the passy OUT of his mouth which usually ends up making him mad...and frustrating the rest of us too...now sure what that is about either! ;)
He is still pretty solidly in 6-9 month clothes, and I got out the box of hand-me-down 9-12 month clothes....and there is not a SINGLE long sleeved item in the whole box...other than a few lightweight pjs! EEK! Looks like I know what he will be asking for Christmas: Long sleeved 9-12 month outfits...he's too young to know that clothes for Christmas is lame, right? ;)
I'll be honest with you....I FORGOT how wonderful it is to have a baby in my life. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED Jack as a baby, and enjoyed him SO MUCH, but I also enjoyed all the subsequent stages too and just forgot about how wonderful BABIES are! I think too I understand better just how quickly this baby stage passes by, so I am trying even harder to enjoy it even more this time around. It is making me think about how I would love to keep babies in my life all the time....NOT that I am wanting another baby anytime soon....the idea of another preemie in nicu and all the steps my dr told me she would take to try to prevent such an event and what those steps would mean for our family absolutely overwhelm me....A LOT of prayer would need to go into a decision like that....but let's just say, the Lord is already softening my heart to the idea of keeping babies in my life once this little guy is not such a baby anymore! :) Not sure how He plans to do it. I am also marveling at how I would have never ever considered in a million years that if I had a 2 (almost 3) year old and a baby, that the baby would be the easier child of the 2 to manage...but these last several months have proved this fact to be true, although, thankfully, big brother has had a good week, so maybe we are out of the woods...maybe.

Jack is going to SCHOOL!

I can remember my mom taking my picture on my first days of school while wearing my new backpack and holding my new lunchbox, so I had to do the same.

He is going to mothers day out one day per week at our church. After much prayer and analysis of the budget, we decided he REALLY needed this interaction, so we are giving it a try. A friend of mine is the director of the mdo and I have LOTS of friends who send their kids there and LOVE it, so it was an easy decision.

Not sure how much detail I want to share about his first day of school....let's just say that I wasnt surprised when his teacher's first words out of her mouth were "Wow, He's agressive"

Yep....sigh...

He's bigger than most of the kids in his class and likes to play rough (guess we can take the blame for that...but we are trying to rectify this)

The next week he had to miss school due to a gnarly cough/sniffles going around in our family.

This past week he got to go back, and I was very pleased to NOT hear any stories about him being too rough or agressive, although I did hear that he was not eager to participate in an art activity and threw a bit of a fit about it...honestly, I am not too worried about this: 1)The art activity is one he had never tried before, and sometimes he is hesitant to try new things and sometimes freaks out if we push him too hard  (although we have been talking to him about trying new things and that fits are NOT the way to behave) and 2)this is just the reason we sent him to school...learning how to interact and behave in a new environment. Social Norms in a large group are only things he can really learn while in a large group...not really something we can teach him at home....its on-the-job training...and I am happy about that. I just hope he doesnt wear his teachers out in the process!

Please keep him and us and his teachers and classmates in your prayers as we are settling into this routine, as well as learning how to properly interact and behave at sunday school, CBS and MOPS with his friends. We are seeing progress...there as well as at home in his behavior!

All better!

   I am so SO happy to report that Wesley is ALL BETTER! When he was discharged from the hospital in July his pulmonary hypertension was described as "moderate" and the cardiologist assured us that he felt Wesley would "grow out of it" and asked that we come back in a month for a follow-up echocardiogram. When we went back a month later (you can see a post about that adventure here) his results came back as unchanged...still moderate, no better and no worse. I tried really REALLY hard to be encouraged by this. His neonatologists asked that we come back 3 months later for another follow-up echo. That day came a few weeks ago.....thank the Lord our venture back into Nashville for that appointment was much less hectic.  The ultrasound tech we had this time was very sweet and even gave us some off the record comments that the pictures she was getting looked good which was very good for this mommie's heart to hear! When the report showed up, it stated no signs of pulmonary hypertension and no follow up needed! YAY! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

weekend with the Dudus

Wesley had his follow up echo on Friday, and Granny Ruthie and Mzee had already offered to watch the boys on Saturday so that Daddy and I could go to the Vandy/Florida game. Instead of coming and going 2 times in 2 days, we got to spend the night with Granny Ruthie and Mzee. The echo seemed to go well, we are still waiting on some results, so I will hopefully have good news to give you soon!

We had a GREAT time at the game...more on that later, look at the fun that the grandparents had with the boys....

Bumbo Head!





when they sent this to me the caption was
"Wesley, the Cheeks Champion"

  

Yummy!
Granny Ruthie took some other cute pics of the boys together....hopefully we will see those soon too!

trunk or treat

We went to trunk or treat at our church. This was the first Halloween when we were home in Cookeville and our first Trunk or Treat. Several of the trunks were decorated really cool...but we were a bit surprised at how many of them were a little creepy. Jack didnt really enjoy the scary-ish ones, and he REALLY didnt like any adult in major costume/make-up. There was a clown (who I think might be his future Mothers Day Out Teacher) and a Friendly Lion who made Jack stop in his tracks. We may have a clown phobia in our future. We certainly got our moneys worth out of these costumes this year!

his "lab coat" even has his name on it! Daddy was supposed to have his lab coat too....but those plans fell through!

My little chunky monkey

the banana came in handy at trunk or treat, several people said that it helped them realize what his costume really was

my sweet boys! I love their expressions!

Jack insisted on trying the bounce house at trunk or treat, but only if Daddy came along too!



there they are! man am I glad Mommie didnt have to come along too!



Jack and Daddy both zoomed down the slide!

they also had a little bounce house, so I didnt have to fear he would get body slammed by the big kids, whew!

no, he didnt knock her down, promise!

Wesley and I hung out on the bleachers as he slept through the craziness. I love how he had his hands folded while he slept.

Voting for the "King"

We went to vote today...and of course I got 1001 questions about voting such as:
"What is voting" (getting to choose who is in charge and who makes the rules of Tennessee)
Who is in charge? (the governor)
What is a governor (he's like the king of Tennessee)
Where is Tennessee? (We live there right now)

I was so pleased that we didnt have to wait AT ALL when we went to vote.  Jack was very hesistant and shy about going in the building and I wasnt sure why. Just as we left the building to get back in the car after voting, Jack pipes up "Where was the king? Did we vote for him?" Turns out he was nervous about getting to meet the king, ad didnt understand why he wasnt right there where we voted.

just say NO

Last time I did major coupon shopping I found a great deal on some "Gogurt" so we decided to give it a try. I hesitated for a moment because it had SpongeBob Squarepants on it and he is one of a few characters who WE DO NOT ALLOW in our house. SpongeBob, Barney, Yo Gabba Gabba, and The Wiggles to name a few are just too annoying/creepy to us, and I really REALLY hope that we can stick to the line we have drawn in the sand. REALLY!
Anyway, Jack has a little trouble with  s-blend sounds like using /st/ in the place of /sp/ such as itsy bitsy "stider" and he really cracked me up when he started talking about "StongeBob Scarepants"..I realize it probably doesnt translate well in print, but it was THE CUTEST thing!
One other funny mispronunciation that he is doing right now involves a childhood toy of mine. Discovery Toys used to sell a toy called "Marbleworks" which involved creating a roller coaster for marbles. My mom has set out this almost vintage toy for Jack to enjoy...and did he ever enjoy it....he was BEGGING us all the time to let him play with "narbles"
narbles