The Weekly Medical Update

I can't keep up with posting about all of our appointments the day they happen, so this week will have them all lumped together.

Here are the highlights:

Tuesday 1/27: John had his pins removed! YAY! The doctor told me John had to wait 24 hours to allow the pin site area to heal over before he would be allowed to change diapers. Hurray for help changing diapers! And giving baths! And carrying William! He still can't get his wedding ring on due to the swelling, but that day is coming soon (remind me someday to tell you about how they managed to save his wedding ring in the ER).

John had a physical therapy appointment after the pins were taken out and he was given about an hours worth of exercises he is supposed to complete every day. He is going to have weekly therapy appointments for the next month to six weeks (just in time for me to start my weekly OB appointments). We really will be living at the doctor's office for the next few months!

This picture just cracks me up. It was raining/sleeting when we pulled in to the parking lot for John's appointment. We watched the couple in the car next to us struggling with something and then go into the building. Upon closer inspection, these people have taken a bedsheet and shut into their car doors over the windshield to keep ice from forming on their windshield during their appointment. The funny thing is: this isn't the first time I've seen people here do something like this. Just the first time I've taken a picture.

The pins that were in John's finger.
John's hand/finger with the pins next to the ring finger. He was able to really wash his hand for the first time since the accident and it is looks SO much better!
The side of his ring finger where most of the injury was located.

Thursday 1/29: We had William's two year well child check up with our pediatrition. As expected, William is doing very well and has met all his milestones. We talked a LOT about eating and our concerns that William isn't eating enough of the right stuff. It was reassuring to hear that we are doing the right thing, but frustrating to know that we are just going to have to work through this phase. It appears we are just starting the picky toddler eating phase early. We were advised to switch him over to skim milk and given the okay for peanut butter (hooray!).

We were surprised to find that William had ear infections in both ears with a lot of fluid build up. Turns out he probably hasn't been feeling good which was affecting his sleeping last weekend. We started anitbiotics and have already seen some improvement. Yay again!

We only got one shot this time, but William was NOT happy about it. He cried/complained off and on for the next 45 minutes to hour after the shot. He is turning into kind of a dramatic little boy. He would be happily playing with a toy and then turn to me and grab his leg crying "ow, ow, ow!" and start crying all over again.

The current stats are:

Height: 35.75 inches (90th percentile)

Weight: 29.5 lbs (70th percentile)

And finally a cute picture of our Big Boy wearing his NDSU sweatshirt (should this size 4T fit him? I think it is mislabeled). For those of you who are not NDSU fans, I'd like to remind you the boy doesn't have any clothes to represent any other North Dakota school.

Bedroom revealed

I finally picked an idea for William's bedroom and went with it. William really likes it (and what REALLY matters is I love it!). We went with: letters and numbers! A huge THANK YOU to Grandma for helping me figure out how to put the numbers and letters up and to Grandpa for watching William while we worked! The few times he came in to check on us made me realize we would NOT have gotten this done while he was awake. And...since he is sleeping in this room, it would be pretty tricky to do while he was sleeping.

Mama putting up the letters (yes, she is in her pjs still and yes, the pjs don't exactly fit anymore over the belly. I'm too cheap to buy new pjs for two more months of pregnancy.) Notice the laser level across my face?

The letters are in navy blue, green and yellow and go around the entire room. William likes to sit on his bed and point out the letters and different colors! So cute (except when he should be sleeping).
The letters are decals (kind of like huge stickers) we pressed onto the wall. When we are done using them, they should just peel off. This was way quicker and easier than buying all wooden letters or trying to paint the letters myself.
The finished look (note the crib in the room!)

The alphabet! YAY! The walls are kind of a springy green and I have green, yellow, & blue striped sheets on the bed. The bedspread is navy blue with yellow and green stitching on it. Simple, but very cute.

Grandma and Grandpa also helped us out by bringing us some bedroom furniture. We've been looking and looking and looking around town and couldn't find anything we liked [in our price range]. So, we're going to use Uncle Mike's old set for now (or forever). The best part? It is already broken in!

William loves to be a "helper"! Helping put the screws into the bedframe.
The helper at work!

PS Thanks for all decorating suggestions. Some of my favorites were: Motorcycle Biker Babes (you won't need to redecorate when he is a teenager!), Tree house (cute, WAY to much work for a one handed man and pregnant chick), outer space (we are kind of nerdy 'round here and I don't think we would be able to have an inaccurate diagram of the solar system= lots of work), safari (very fun!)

PPS I'm almost ready to talk about the sleep situation.

Birthday Party, Cat Style

The cats don't get equal time here - but they do spend about 98% of their day sleeping. That is, until there is a birthday party to go to. The cats love birthdays, or more accurately, wrapping paper, boxes and bows!

This is Mudd, checking out the box and wrapping paper. She is a hard cat to get a picture of because she is so black!
William unwraps the next present and Mudd patiently waits in the wings
Mango loves boxes. He is our shy (or antisocial) kitty so he had to wait a long time before he got his chance without a lot of people around.
A box is a great place to sleep
Mudd checks out the wrapping paper - both cats are also a lot of fun when we are trying to wrap gifts also.
Mudd tries to drive cars on William's new hotwheels rug. Turns out she would rather nap than drive cars.
More awake, but still too lazy to get up and get a car to drive.

Finally..I can tell you....

It was our friends the Hawn's welcoming in their new baby boy on Tuesday! He arrived WAY ahead of schedule (Jenn was supposed to be 3 weeks ahead of me), but is doing really well. I know prayers, wishes and happy thoughts (or whatever other positive vibes you send) would be much appreciated by their family.

Want to see pictures? Look here!


PS Several new posts below from the birthday weekend...scroll down!

Weeee!

Congratulations to our friends with the brand new baby boy! I can't tell you who yet, but boy were we surprised!

Also coming: John's pins/therapy update. I'm sure you're on pins and needles waiting. Haha...

Eagle Days!

John and I started going to Eagle Days with our teacher friends the year I was pregnant with William. Eagle Days is always held the last weekend in January - so you can imagine I was very, very pregnant. Looking back, I'm not sure I would have taken me with that year. But, I don't think any of them were up to arguing with this pregnant chick (you're not gonna win, that is all I'm going to say). I think I had William four days after Eagle Days that year. We missed the actual Eagle Days last year due to the birthday, but went the following weekend with our teacher friends.

This year is was cold (11 degrees) and very windy on the river. However, this was the BEST eagle watching we've ever had. I think we saw more eagles this year than the other years combined. Very cool...although I didn't get many great pictures. First it was super cold and second the distance to where the eagles were hanging out was not ideal for our lens. But, here is what we came back with:

Eagles or penguins? Four eagles hanging out on a chunk of ice. Pelicans (? Is that what they are?) swimming around in the background.

If you look carefully in this picture at the base of the trees, you'll see a LOT of herons hanging out. By my count, there are 27 herons in this picture.

Eagles flying around and swooping in to fish - very cool!

Another eagle hanging out on an ice chunk floating in the river

The eagle roost. If you look carefully at the tree in the center of this picture, you'll see a lot of white heads. I count 24 eagles in this tree alone.

Fishing eagles, swimming pelicans (?)

William was SO cold he only stayed out with us for a few minutes before Grandma and Grandpa took him back to the car.

This year we caught the Eagle Days Presentation at the Apple Shed in Clarksville. This shed has to be the coldest place in Missouri. Metal shed uninsulated in the middle of winter. Add in a metal chair to sit on and you have one very cold behind.

Birthday with Grandma and Grandpa

We decided to celebrate William's birthday on Saturday with Grandma and Grandpa because they had to leave Sunday and Daddy needed to work on Monday. Not that William knew the difference. When he got up that morning, all his presents were sitting out and ready. After all the Christmas-ing our family did, William is a pro at opening presents and he didn't want to waste any time. However, we had people meeting us at our house to go to the Clarksville, MO Eagle Days. So we we picked one present to open and then quit so everyone would be ready to go!

William loves to open presents! (who doesn't?)

Yay! It's a puzzle....wait, haven't I already played with this? (Answer: yes! William found this in my closet a few weeks ago while I was putting away clothes. I had to sneak it away from him in order to wrap it up)
He also opened a card that came in the mail from Grandpa Heidt. William LOVED this Cars card (he hasn't seen this movie as it is rated PG, but it doesn't stop him from loving cars!). He carried this card with him everywhere that day. To the changing table, to the dinner table, EVERYWHERE!

Later that night, we went to one of our favorite restaurants: The Texas Roadhouse for dinner.

William was NOT cooperating with the camera..but I think this face is funny

Eating his dinner and hamming it up

After dinner it was time to open the rest of the presents! He loves his new "packpack" from GranGerry and Grandpa Tom!

Helping Grandpa put toys in the new backpack
Opening an Elmo card - another favorite!
Testing out the plastic food from GranGerry and Grandpa Tom - delicious!
Reading a new book with Grandma (from Grandma and Grandpa)

And then FINALLY it was time for birthday cake! Luck for me, William is pretty easy going when it comes to cake. He'll happily eat anything (not so much true about any other food lately). So, we had chocolate cake with chocolate chips and chocolate frosting - can you guess what Mama is craving? When we brought the cake out, William squealed "BIRTHDAY CAKE!" I'm not sure how he knew what it was, but he was positive this was a BIRTHDAY CAKE!

The chocolate-y cake
William checking out his cake. He is wearing the shirt I made for his birthday that says: WARNING: I'M TWO!!
We were getting everything set up for cake and Grandpa left to go to the bathroom quick. Unfortunately, we were quicker and William ended up having to wait for a minute for Grandpa to rejoin us. I was holding his hands so he wouldn't touch the cake when he announced "BITE!" and leaned forward to do just that. He took a bite out of the side of the cake.

We were all laughing so hard, he leaned forward and did it again. I didn't have any hands left to stop him and I was laughing so hard it didn't matter anyway!

The cake after William took a few bites
The eating of the cake and wearing of the birthday hats!
Yay! Now with chocoate ice cream (what? you thought I would pick a different flavor? Guess again)
All done and straight to the tub!
Watching videos with Grandpa on YouTube the next morning
Coloring and wearing his "packpack"
A more serious approach to the coloring. Note the plastic bag behind him. This was part of another present containing a Hotwheels rug. He liked the rug, but LOVES this plastic bag (or "other packpack") even more.
More coloring

Working, Working, Working

We've been working, working, working on house projects this weekend! We always get a lot done when Grandma and Grandpa are around, but WOW! They are hard workers. On Friday they got up early and sent Mama back to bed (Hooray!) and then tackled the installation of thresh holds for the doorways in our basement. Although it isn't a huge task, it was going to be very difficult for our one handed man to complete all by himself. When the thresh holds were done, Daddy and Grandpa started working on installing the baseboard in our family room. There are just a few things left to do before we can call this project DONE!

Here is Grandpa trying to install the thresh hold from the play room into the living room. With a little help, of course.
Measuring is always important!
Sometimes you need to measure other things too...
If you can't see it very well, you might need to get down to eye level to see what the problem is...
And, sometimes you just need to take a break and play with your toys!
The completed thresh hold (also completed:thresh hold into the toy closet)
Look! We have baseboard (the white stuff at the bottom of the wall)! Grandpa helped us put up baseboard in the living room, bedroom and closet. We sure do work Grandpa HARD!
The mirror is up in the bathroom and the towel rack is also! YAY!