Thursday, October 20, 2011

1st visit from Tooth Fairy, Fall Festival, Pumpkin Patch & Pumkun Chunkin

Last Wednesday, Colin and Katherine were playing in our room "watching" cartoons while we fixed dinner. We heard Katherine crying, when she came in the kitchen, she had a bloody mouth and shirt. Colin bumped into her mouth and knocked her two bottom front teeth loose. In the morning, I scheduled Katherine a dentist appointment to get it checked out. Before she even got to the dentist, she pulled on of them out at school. The dentist said that the teeth were already loose, just not enough of her to notice yet. Everything looked good on the x-ray, Colin just sped up the process by a few weeks. That night the tooth fairy made her first visit to our house, last night she made her second visit. That should be enough for awhile.
Over the weekend we had beautiful weather, so we decided to take full advantage of it. Saturday we had Katherine's soccer game early in the morning, then we got the family packed up for a nice day trip. We loaded up the kids and my parents in the SUV (Good thing for 3rd row seats) and headed to Fayetteville, TX ..a small town that my aunt and uncle live in halfway between Austin and Houston. They were having their annual fall festival, Lick Skillet Days. It was a nice day for a drive through the country and a nice little town fair. The fair wasn't very large, but the whole point was to get out of the house, enjoy the weather, and spend time as family.. Mission accomplished. Was a little disappointed that they were selling beer, but not till the dance at 6:00pm. I don't drink beer, but others were looking forward to that. They had some nice vendors where Katherine and Colin stocked up on toys, cookies, chocolate covered raisins, ice cream, snow cones, and other goodies. They both loved playing in the historic courthouse and jail. The kids had a great time running around, thought they would take a nap on the 1 1/2 hour drive home… no way.. But Paw Paw sure did fall asleep.

Sunday we hung around the house most of the day. We met up with friends and their kids and took the kids to a really cool pumpkin patch right by the house. They had tons of pumpkins to choose from and a nice little train ride, which Colin LOVED of course. All the kids got their face painted with pumpkins and they even had a catapult to do "pumpkin chunkin". Matt did the pumpkin chunkin, his pumpkin launched 450 feet. The kids had so much fun there, that we had a slight little breakdown when it was time to go. Last thing- A nice/slight mean moment by Katherine that I just wanted to get into the blog. Yesterday morning Katherine asked if she had surgeries on her heart when she was young like Colin. I explained that God make her a healthy heart and gave Colin a special heart that the doctors had to help out.

Then she hugged Colin and then... Stuck her tongue out and said "Ha Ha".

She loves him so so much, but he did knock her teeth loose :)


MATT"S VIDEO OF HIS PUMPKIN CHUKIN

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Coiln's 6 month Cardiology Check- Up

Before I get to Colin's 6 month cardiology check up - a real quick review of our weekend. Katherine did a great job at her soccer game. Saturday afternoon we packed up the kids and dropped them off at my parents for swimming and to spend the night. Matt and I went and met Matt's mom at the Houston Art Festival downtown to look at beautiful art, have some drinks, and listen to some live music. After the art festival, Matt and I headed to a new sports bar by the house to watch A&M beat Texas Tech. The sports bar was nice, we sat in a booth and had our own private TV to watch the game on. Sunday we picked up the kids and it rained ALL day, but we needed it really bad. So we watched movies, colored, kids tore up the upstairs play room.
Tuesday Colin had his 6 month cardolilogy check up at Texas Children's. We always get nervous about upcoming appointments, the fear of the unknown. Would it be time for his next surgery, is his heart function good, is his leaky value leaking worse where it will need intervention, are there any new problems we are not aware of : All those questions build up in your mind, and the nerves kick it!

Colin was having a sedation echo (ultra sound of his heart) so he could not eat after 8:30am (his appointment was at 12:30). I worked from home that morning to make sure we followed the eating/drinking instructions. We took Katherine to school and had breakfast with her and Colin got to meet her Kindergarten teacher and class. About 11:00am, Colin asked to eat, so for a distraction, we took the dog for a walk. Matt got home from work, and we headed out to our appointment.
We were called back to the room for the sedation medicine. They took Colin's vitals - O2 levels around 85-88% (which is good for half a heart). Colin was pretending his blood pressure cuff was his Buzz Lightyear Laser Ray(Oh how I love him!). Colin took his sleepy medicine and was out within 5 minutes. As I rocked him to sleep, it came to my mind that there is something so unnatural about having to do this with your child. I think for the most part I cope well with it all, but it breaks my heart for him. That he has to go through all this. He should be at school playing like every other 2 year old.
They called us back for the test. It took about 30 minutes for the echo techs to get all the pictures they wanted while he laid there very peacefully asleep (and snoring). As a parent, it's a very long 30 minutes. The techs are busy doing their job, so there is not much talk. Just Matt and I looking at the screen. I am hoping for a great report, but fearful of the screen I am looking at might give us bad news. It's his heart, not a broken arm or something that is easily fixed.
After the test, Colin has a very hard and grumpy time coming out of sedation. That was no fun at all. Daddy seemed to calm him down the most. We finally got to see the doctor AND…. Echo looked great, heart function looked great, don't have to come back for 6 more months!!!! YEAH, what a huge relief! She was very happy with his progress. We talked about weight (she had him in the 9th percentile) and she said was not concerned, yes he is small, but he has always been small, our daughter was small, and he is gaining on his growth curve. That also was a huge relief, I know I probably stress too much about calories, but I am his mom, that's my job! Next time he won't have to get an echo, but he will go home with a halter monitor to record his heart for 24 hours just to make sure. Medicine stayed the same, so GREAT check - up! Rough appointment, but great news. That night Colin was very woosy and "drunk" from the medicine. He was falling over himself and walking into walls. Funny yet not funny. Then BAM, a switched turned on right at "bedtime" and Colin was wired, hyper for hours. Could not get him to stop moving or go to sleep. He finally crashed at 10:45pm (2.5 hrs PAST his bedtime!)

Thursday, October 6, 2011

All about Katherine

This past weekend was all about Katherine. Above is her school pictures from Kindergarten.

Friday night Katherine had her first sleepover at out house, she has been to a slumber party before, but this was the first time for her to have a friend stay at our house. Her friend has a brother the exact same age as Colin, so for a few hours all four of them played upstairs. After her friend's mom and brother left, the girls and Colin watched a movie with popcorn and played and played some more. At 10:00pm, all three were playing in Katherine's room, when I went and got Colin for bed.. He cried saying.. "But Sissy no night night, but Sissy no night night..", he was upset to be leaving the slumber party :). After getting Colin to bed, we got the girls to get settled down. A few times we had to go put them back to bed because we could here them running around. Finally, there was silence and everyone was asleep. Colin woke up early the next morning at 6:15am, Matt went upstairs to get him and the girls were already wide awake, so no telling how much they slept.

We got ready for soccer and off to the game. We ended up playing the team with Katherine's other girlfriends and her others friends came to watch the game too. So it was more of social hour for Katherine than a soccer game. She still did pretty well kicking the ball hard and following through with it. No goals this time, but she was a little distracted and a little tired. After the game, all the kids went to the playground for about an hour to burn off even more energy. That afternoon I took Katherine to go see her friend perform at her cheer camp, since she came to see her soccer game. Katherine thought the cheer was fun to watch but was more interested in the in ground trampoline used for the tumbling class. That evening Katherine's friends and families came over for play date (kids)/watch football games (adults). The first one to get there was at 5:00pm, the last to leave was at 10:00pm. Needless to say at 10:15, Katherine was passed out in our bed asleep with cartoons on in the background. It was a fun but long day for her.

Sunday we went out to eat for lunch, then I took Katherine to a birthday party for another one of her friends. Then the weekend was quickly over.. But Katherine (and Colin) has a blast, so that's all that matters.