All of the kids have been a little off the last few days. Alex is still a little under the weather from his cold last weekend. Teague has both a cold and his recovery from surgery. Even Kaitlyn was a little congested. We decided a hot, steamy shower would do everyone good. We were pleasantly surprised that Kaitlyn seemed to enjoy the shower and sat in her bumbo for a record length of time.
Downtown Paducah was hosting a Dickens of a Christmas with characters, Santa, S’mores, etc. We took the kids to check it out. They loved seeing Santa (the first of many times this year). Alex asked for smelly markers and a fairy house. Teague asked for a fairy (for Alex).
They were happy to roast s’mores while waiting in line for the carriage.
After a 1.5 hour wait to ride the carriage they were not as excited as I and hoped for the actual ride.
It was a crazy, crazy day full of visiting and traveling. We got up early and had to say goodbye to Wade’s family in Memphis. (Pop wanted to check Teague’s eye one last time before we left.)
Then it was on the road to Paducah to see my family.
Our first stop was dinner at my Dad’s. Not only did we see family and the Upshaws too, but one of my good childhood friends (Kate) brought her family to visit too. The kids haven’t seen each other in several years but that didn’t slow them down.
Today was Teague’s big day. Dr. Hunter schedules his surgery in order of complexity and that put Teague at the third surgery for the day, around noon. Unfortunately something went wrong in scheduling and he ended up waiting a VERY long time. He was great at just waiting and the nurses were wonderful at providing stickers and lunch for dad (poor Teague had to go all day without food). At one point, Teague was requesting certain pictures be sent to me (such as his hide-n-seek picture) and I would send silly pictures back to him. My favorite was the picture of Teague rubbing his eyes – which he called “googley eyes.”
In case it wasn’t exactly clear why Teague was having this surgery just look at his eyes in the picture below. His left eye is quite a bit further out (from his nose) than the right eye. Because of this he doesn’t use his eyes together and prefers his right eye – which will cause a deterioration of vision in the left eye over time.
Dr. Hunter said the surgery was a little trickier than he had expected due to scar tissue but he was pleased with the results. Teague had a rough awakening again (Wade said one of his worst) but did manage to eat a popsicle before heading to the hotel.
Teague has a followup with both doctors tomorrow morning and then they’ll get on a plane to join us in Memphis for Thanksgiving.
This post is long overdue (partly due to the fact that my bathroom is very hard to photograph). When we bought the house I loved that the master bedroom was the color of my old living room. The attached bathroom was a mint green which I did not love even a tiny bit. Because there isn’t a door between the bedroom and bathroom I always planned to paint it the same color as the bedroom. The part holding me up was the weird open space above the built-in cabinet.
I saw no use for it and Wade was happy to fill it in with drywall – when he had time. He finally got to it on his list. Then I painted. And this past week I finally got new towels and bathmats. The bathroom is finally done!
My Mom was in town when Kaitlyn was born and left the day after we got home from the hospital. She got a few good snuggles but mostly saw a screaming, unhappy Kaitlyn. I took Kaitlyn to Paducah for Mom’s birthday, but we were only there a few days and there were three other grandchildren competing for attention. We planned Mom’s trip here with the thought that she could help me decorate for Christmas and spend some quality one-on-one time with Kaitlyn while Alex was in school and Teague was in Boston. Kaitlyn was full of smiles (and a few giggles) and happy to run errands and spend the days shopping and decorating.
This kid. He has the grandest of plans and the creativity to see them through. Today’s idea was on the small side but he was determined to make a Santa hat and beard out of paper.
We love Teague’s Boston Doctors. Teague flew out with Wade yesterday and had an appointment with Teague’s ophthalmologist (Dr. Hunter) yesterday and his plastic surgeon (Dr. Elliott) today. After Dr. Hunter’s exam, Teague always requests that the chair go up and down several times and wants to see the toys used during the exam. Dr. Hunter is always great about humoring Teague (we have not found other doctors to be as kid-friendly). Yesterday Dr. Hunter even took an extra 10 minutes to just sit and play with Teague. That’s pretty awesome for the Chief of Ophthalmology at a major Children’s hospital.
We were curious to hear what Dr. Elliott had to say about Teague’s eyelids. She hadn’t seen him since the implant had to be removed last May. She suggested a new implant was needed at this time to raise his eyelid and even offered to squeeze in the procedure during patients on Monday during Teague’s surgery with Dr. Hunter. Did I mention we love Teague’s doctors?
Alex was Owl Student this week. That meant his favorite book (Bugs Bunny And The Carrot Machine) would be read in class. A parent is allowed to come but even better that Gram was in town and could do the reading.
I have talked in the past about what a great night sleeper Kaitlyn has been. From day one she was sleeping 4-5 hour chunks and by the time we came home from the hospital it was 6-8 hours. Pretty soon she was sleeping 14 hours with a single bottle at 5-7 am and then sleeping till 7 or 8 am. About three weeks ago this changed. I have no idea if it was related to the time change, a slight cold, her 4 month shots, etc. Suddenly Kaitlyn needed her pacifier reinserted every two hours. I have no problem with her having the pacifier, but I struggled going from a single night time waking to five or more. I kept waiting for things to return to normal but no luck. Wade and I discussed taking the pacifier away, but decided to wait until after the holidays and travel.
Then two nights ago. I had just settled into a hot bath when I heard Kaitlyn cry (about 9 pm). I decided to let her cry and see what happened. After 20 minutes she fell asleep. I decided the no pacifier thing might be a great solution. Kaitlyn woke up 40 minutes later and cried again. I decided not to go upstairs. That led to one of the worst nights I have ever had. Kaitlyn slept a little less than two hours from that point on – which was right after Wade gave her a bottle at 4 am. I tried rubbing her back, letting her cry, swaddling her, unswaddling her, etc. We all got up about 6:45 and most of us were a little cranky. Once everyone was gone for the day, I put Kaitlyn down for her morning nap (without a pacifier) assuming she would fall asleep due to exhaustion. She cried for two hours. At this point I gave up. She got her pacifier and fell immediately asleep. (Notice the scratching she managed to do to her face last night. Poor girl.)
She took her normal great naps during the day. I put her down for bed at 6 pm. She slept till 5 am when she woke up for a bottle and then slept till 7 am. She didn’t wake up once to have the pacifier reinserted. Does that mean we returned to not needing it or she was too tired from the previous night to care? We’ll see tonight!
Alex is just starting to really understand money. He knows he has it. He knows things he want cost money. He knows he can use his money to buy things. He also knows most coins he finds in the house he can have. What he doesn’t yet understand is the value of money or why a dollar is better than a coin.
I opened Alex’s backpack to put in his lunchbox and saw a twenty dollar bill. He does have one or two of these but I thought they were up high on a shelf where he couldn’t reach them. Then I realized we have had a stack of twenties sitting on the counter. (Not normal for us, but Wade just sold my old camera.) I asked Alex if he took one of the bills. He said yes. He wanted ice cream money. Then we had to talk about how different numbers on bills mean different amounts and paper money found around the house was not up for grabs…
