Elmo chair

giggly elmo

moving fast

Some pics to catch you up, the bottom one is our boys headed out to the shop. Then Brayden playing dr, yes this was before he got sick, and the other two Brayden took, see how fast Braxton moves, he's like a speeding target!! No wonder I don't get much blogging done, I don't get many pics of him either!!

So much for hoping

I thought I had both the boys over the colds without dr apptmts, well not so much, spoke tooo soon I guess. Brayden went to school last week and on wed I picked him up after school and he didn't want to talk in the car. When we got home I looked him over and took his temp he was at 100.8. I gave him tylenol to take it down and he promptly threw up on my stairs. BAD day. Had to give the meds again and this time they stayed down. He told me his ears hurt but didn't complain of anything else. He took a really long nap that afternoon and I kept him on tylenol and motrin piggybacking to keep the temp down. Thurs he wasn't any better and he was NOT eating anything. He would drink water ok, but no eating. I had looked in his ears so I knew one of them was really red inside. I broke down and did the dr apptmt thurs afternoon. Dr diagnosed a double ear infection both inner and outer ears and both ears too, so we got oral antibiotics and ear drop antibiotics. Friday he still wouldn't eat, Sat still not interested in eating, so sunday afternoon we went back to the dr. He was also still maintaining a fever of 99.5 or so pretty constant. He would feel ok part of the time and would play etc, but no eating. I finally told him I was very worried about him, he said "mama don't worry about me, I'm ok". I had to leave the room and cry!! Sunday the dr told me to go to the hosp and do a cbc blood test, and to see the pediatrician on Monday because he didn't know what more to do. The blood test came through fine, so that was a relief. My big boy let the nurse put the needle in his arm and take his blood with not a whimper. He was awesome. I was amazed. By sunday night he was doing better he ate a full slice of pizza which was major for him. I did a happy dance!! He thought that was pretty funny too. :-) By Monday morning he was doing better but we went to the ped anyway and found out that he was gettting over strep on top of the ears. Dr said he was on the mend there was nothing more he could do. It was a waste of money that day, but needed to know it was over too. Actually at least it explained why the whole illness lasted 5 days of constant fever. Poor kid, too bad he didn't just tell me his throat hurt!! At least the oral antibiotics killed the strep so that was good. Anyway, this mama is still learning all the ins and outs of illness, don't think I will ever get comfortable with any of it. There are certain times in life when we will do ANYTHING to fix things, even three dr apptmts and a blood test!! After all this I know that when Braxton goes to school I will be returning to the work force to work for INSURANCE. I wish the pres had a good idea on health care, but what he has going isn't going to fix anything either. Perhaps the next pres will have a good idea. For now we just have to figure out a way to pay for what we need. :-) We are glad its over and things are back to normal. Whatever normal is, for us its dealing with some behavior issues with Brayden right now. He has decided that he runs this household so we are teaching him that he doesn't. This takes time!! Mama has gotten several nights sleep now so my cold is moving out, hopefully completely this time. When Brayden was sick he was in our bed 4-5 times a night, that makes for little or no sleep for both parents. Roger actually had a day he didn't feel real good too. Braxton through all of this has remained just fine with a few sniffles and thats ALL. For that we are incredibly thankful!! We are adjusting and figuring out how each one of us can make things easier for the others. Its quite a journey and we are making our way through it. Just hope we get lots of it right!! :-)

Talking on the phone

One of the favorite welcome home gifts is this telephone that is in some of the pictures below. Braxton has gotten to where he puts his hand over his ear and says "hello". I knew his first word was going to be hello!! And so it is...so much for "mama" being his first word!!

Seen this face before?

From fit to "did you notice" in 1/2 second flat!! Just thought it was funny. He is cute even when he is throwing a fit!

Update

A little update from our home. We are all adjusting pretty well here. Mama has a cold again, guess it morphed a bit since the last time I had it, the boys and I seem to be passing it around again. Hope it stops with me and doesn't visit them again. I feel lucky to have gotten both of them over it without dr apptmts. Hopefully in a couple of days I will be over this too. The pics, Braxton uses the elmo chair more than Brayden ever did, guess the giggle is so much fun to him. Then there is the whole toy in the mouth thing, like brother like brother. Today we got Braxton to wear a pooh cap, he was on his way out the door with big brother so he was handing me his sippy cup. The last one is the one that shows the gift bags, both boy's love to carry the bags around and put stuff in them. Its funny what "toys" can occupy them for hours on end.

Keeping on...

We are keeping on keeping on, Braxton continues to get more comfy here at home. He has mastered going up the stairs, going down still requires help and he has fallen down a few stairs so he stays away from them till we get there to help him. He has a basket of toys so it gets emptied real regular, actually every day. I have figured out its best to not bother to pick up toys till the end of the day as its an effort in futility otherwise. Brayden is still learning how to share, he is pretty possessive of his toys so we have to guide that thought process a bit more. Of course Braxton isn't really old enough to play with yet. All the learning curves are present and accounted for. :-) Aunt Dar came this weekend and brought more presents...both boys LOVED opening and then playing with the new toys. Braxton loves the phone, his first words may well be "hello and goodbye" instead of Mama and Daddy. :-) He knows when it rings to pick up the handset and say something. Brayden loves his new truck and the boat made it to the bath last night. I haven't managed to get good pics of Brayden with his toys yet, but will get that today I hope. Bath time has gotten lots better. Braxton isn't afraid of it anymore, he loves the new squirty toys we got him for Christmas and that has helped make bathtime much better. There are only tears when water goes over his head now, and thats only if I do it too many times. :-) All things done in moderation helps him a lot. We are experimenting with larger chunks of food now. The baby food grinder helps, but he needs to learn to chew his food. For now he is really a lazy eater. Daddy has been trying to show him how to chew and he copies that so maybe that will help out some. He isn't crazy about bigger chunks of food, but maybe with constantly putting it in front of him it will become more accepted. We will see how this goes. Will let this do for now. The pics below show growth, he loves yogurt and manages to get it all over him lots of the time. It was really reminiscent of the banana mess with Brayden so long ago now. :-) We didn't realize how big Brayden was getting until we got Braxton. Really shows us the size difference. Brayden was still our little boy till we got the new little boy, then its obvious who the big boy is!!

Fun with Uncle Bobby

Braxton really enjoyed Uncle Bobby, much like Brayden did when he was this size. Braxton figured out that falling backwards on a bed is sort of fun as long as someone catches your feet!! They had a good time getting to know each other.

Now at home

Braxton has mastered the art of the sippy cup on his own. I went to bed that night at 6 p.m. and they weren't done with supper yet, so Daddy had to mark the occassion with a pic. We also had our family Christmas this weekend. The boys have done quite a lot of adjusting and are doing well. They do play together some and chase each other a lot. Braxton is copying tons of things that Brayden does right down to spitting so we have begun the nasty habit lessons too. Had to expect that, altho didn't realize it would happen quite so soon. Both boys are finally getting their days and nights right and sleeping past 4:30 a.m. too. Mama was certainly glad to get that clock changed!! Its best to not get mama out of bed before 7 a.m. for sure and after is better. All things considered we will try to post regularly on here, tho it will slow down some now. Brayden goes back to school on Monday, he is really looking forward to that! Braxton won't know what happened when its just him and mama with Daddy back to work too on Monday. It wasn't safe for him to go to the shop when he was feelin fuzzy so he has stayed in the house and helped with the mountains of dishes and such with company. I know he will be glad to get back to work though too. All for now...

Arriving home

This was what we looked like when we arrived home on Monday around 4:30 p.m. I was truly sick with a cold, felt fuzzy and like we were moving all the time. The boys slept most of the way home and I actually slept most of it too except for when text messages kept coming in from sisters and Mom. I think they were just to torment me on some level. :-) I carried both the boys in and laid them in these places and they dropped right back off to sleep.

On the plane

This is what it looked like on the 10 hr flight from Frankfurt to Denver. We were certainly glad of this view because some other parents were not so lucky!! I don't think Brayden ate even one of the three meals served on this plane. Actually they weren't very good, so it was probably best that he slept most of the time. Daddy and I didn't fare so well as far as sleep went. I didn't get much at all. I began to feel a cold coming on during this flight and the lack of sleep didn't help that. By the time we landed in Denver I was long over being on a plane. I had looked all over the monitor for the flight pattern and time, distance left etc and never could find it. Overheard a flight attendant telling another passenger that it was not allowed for them to tell us where we were or how much longer the flight would last due to the failed Christmas Day bombing on that flight that landed in Detroit. We were told at some point to remove all blankets and pillows from our laps and put all our carryon luggage away. That was quite a while before we landed. Anyway, it was good to get that leg overwith. We got down to passport control without issue and got through that pretty quickly but the secondary part with the adoption papers took forever. We only had 1 1/2 hr layover and that took up 45 min to get through that before we could get our bags, clear customs and recheck them and head for the gate. We got to the gate and they were boarding, we took our passes up to the counter and she told us they were weight restricted so we would have to wait to see if there would be room. Finally after all the others were on the plane, someone called up and said 7 passengers hadn't checked in so we could board. We made the flight but the luggage did NOT. We arrived in Casper a tired sort of family, glad our one carryon had our clothes in it, but also very glad that family made the trip to meet the plane. During the rush to recheck the bags we failed to pull the keys to the aspen out of one of the checked bags, so with our suitcases still in Denver, we couldn't have gone very far!! Papa made shuttle trips for us to the restaurant and then to the hotel and then back to the airport at 10:30 to get the luggage as it came in on the next flight unrestricted.

Some last ones in Moscow

My sleeping boys and then the playing boys, the coffee table was a huge source of fun.