Two-riffic Day!

I had the day off yesterday for my son’s birthday. It was such a great day with the family.

He is all about tools and the construction vehicles that have been outside, so that was the “theme” for his birthday.

My dad sent him a tool box earlier this week. It had some cool tools in it and he was loving it! Without seeing one Three Stooges movie, he’s already showing me he’s going to love them.

When I came home Tuesday, I put together his birthday present so he could get it first thing in the morning. It’s a cool Mickey Mouse Tool Bench.

He also got some “power tools” that we got from Sam’s Club. They really look like Bosch tools and they all make noises. The drill actually lets you drive a screw in and reverses to get them out. He figured that out on his own. He is loving this!

Sam’s coworkers told her about a cool place north of us. It’s like a big McDonald’s Play Place. Slides, zip lines, and more. He was in his glory going through the tunnels.

They even had a rock wall for him to climb.

We played long into the afternoon and then made our way home. Sam’s mom picked up Andrew’s birthday cake. We were going to go pick it up and bring it home, but then Sam’s sister said she had a gift for Andrew and she’d meet us at their mom’s. We wound up eating cake and ice cream there before finally calling it a night.

We don’t often get days together as a family, so Andrew’s birthday was extra special. It was a really great day.

In my blog yesterday, I posted on of the photos from his 2nd birthday shoot. Our photographer captured this amazing candid that I cannot wait to hang on the wall. This very well can be one pose that I have them do every year ….

I am thankful that the Lord blessed me with my wonderful children. I am so happy to be their dad.

“Two” Fast!

I can’t even believe that my son Andrew is two years old today! As the title of this blog indicates, it has gone by TWO fast!

Oh the things that this boy has been through! I think he has had more medical tests than I have at this point. Through it all, he has been a champ!

It has been amazing to watch him and his sister create a bond together. Like any siblings, they love each other and drive each other crazy.

He is my helper. Our helper actually. He is always bringing us things. He is always picking up toys (usually after dumping them out). He is constantly on the go! He is FAST. If this was the old west, he’d be called Quick Draw!

He’s our explorer. He watches and learns by watching. He wants to build things. He loves tools. He would rather play with my drill (bitless, of course), tape measures, and wrenches than toys.

He has no fear. He’s our adventurer. He is curious about everything. He’s our monkey!

He has a joyful laugh and beautiful smile. He’s my practical joker!

The joy and happiness that this boy has brought to our lives is immeasurable. I know that in the years ahead, he will continue to provide moments that make us laugh, make us cry and make us proud. I look forward to each and every one of those moments.

This little impromptu writing doesn’t even begin to convey my thoughts and feelings. My wife posted this on Facebook tonight and it says it better than I could:

“As I sit here typing this I am filled with emotions. I am happy that we get to celebrate another year of being blessed with you in our lives. I love seeing you grow, and develop and find the person God created YOU to be, and I am so excited about all the great and wonderful things that you will still do in this life, but I am also a little sad. Sad that my baby is officially no longer a baby, and that time goes by so fast.

You are 2 now and everything has changed, YOU have changed . You are no longer a fragile little baby, fully dependent on me, nope… you are now a strong-willed, stubborn little boy who wants to do everything himself, and you love reminding mommy that you CAN. You are full of surprises and bring something new and exciting to every day. You are sweet, SO funny, silly and friendly with the best smile and you really do always smile.

However, we also learned to not let that sweet, innocent smile fool anyone, because you have a naughty side to you too, clear as day as you take something from your sister or off the counter and hide it behind your back, under your arm, just to take them, and when spotted those little legs of yours run as fast as they can with the naughtiest little giggle and scream following behind.

You are curious, wild, adventurous and daring – nothing is too high, too big or too fast for you. You are one of the best thing that could have happened to our family!

Happy 2nd Birthday Bubby Drew!”

I won’t ramble anymore, so I will wrap this up by simply saying, “Happy 2nd Birthday, Andrew!” I love you, so much! I thank God that He sent you to our family.

Have a wonderful day, Bubby!

Nature is Amazing!

The kids and I had a neat experience the other morning. I went to take the garbage out to the road. When I went to grab the last can, I saw this amazing caterpillar on the rim. It was huge!

I rushed back into the house and had the kids come outside to see. They were captivated. I went and grabbed a stick so the caterpillar could climb onto it.

It was so cool to see their reactions! Andrew really loved it!

Ella said, “He’s got to find a tree so he can make a chrysalis and turn into a butterfly!”

She went with Andrew on a field trip to a local nature preserve and she remembered that caterpillars go into the chrysalis before turning into a butterfly. She is so smart!

Since we already had it on a stick, we walked over to our neighbors tree and it moved to the branch. Ella and Andrew were in awe watching it move from the stick to the tree.

We found out later after searching the net that this will turn into a Cecropia Moth. A friend even posted a photo on Facebook for us.

This was such a cool experience for me and the kids. I don’t think I’d ever seen a caterpillar that big outside of a zoo. Who knows, maybe it will come back to say hello when it makes it change…

Mischievous Message

The other day I was at work. My wife had texted me something while I was working with a patient. When I came back to the tech room and saw it I responded. “Sorry, I just now saw this. Was with a patient.”

The text that followed threw me …

We call Andrew “Bubby.” and I joked that maybe he had gotten ahold of the phone. I truly didn’t think it was him, because Sam has a lock code on her phone.

When the second text came through, I was a bit freaked out. Was my wife ok? Was she having a stroke? The worry started to hit me. Suddenly, she responded – with a picture of him.

She explained to me what happened and I chuckled. Her post from social media:

Walk into the bedroom to check on Andrew who was sleeping. And this is what I walk into… with him on my phone.

Take my phone away from him, his response….

“Hey! Me text daddy!”

I’m sorry to anyone who gets random texts from my kid. He knows how to unlock my phone :-(

This kid is brilliant. How he knew her passcode is beyond me!

Oh, and I am sure she probably had to delete about 274 pictures of his forehead afterward. He always winds up taking many selfies!

Post Surgery Update

I apologize for not posting a dedicated blog to an update on my son. Many blogger friends have reached out and asked how he is doing after surgery a week or so ago.

We are blessed that he didn’t need to be in surgery very long. They had booked the operating room for 4 hours, due to the “possibility” of other surgeries, but he did not need them. This was good news mostly, but there are now other questions. From my wife’s social media post:

Surgery went amazing. You would never know this kid had anything done. He bounced back fairly fast and is eating and drinking like a champ now. But surgery left a TON of questions and opened up new concerns. Andrew has severe sleep apnea as well as a speech delay, which we have always blamed on the laryngeal cleft and his Laryngomalacia. Both of which are still there, but surgery revealed they are not the cause of the obstruction like we were thinking. We have an appointment at the end of September with neurology to start looking at different things.

Some of the stuff we are witnessing is really leaving us scratching our heads. In speaking to the neurologist, some speech delay or speech regression could be neurological in nature. There is also some concern about muscle tone loss in some areas. We’re working with PT on that.

He’s been a toe-walker for a very long time and that can cause future problems. So this week, he received his braces. Both feet go in them and he needs oversized shoes so the braces fit in them. He wears them off and on for a couple hours and as the days progress, he’ll eventually be wearing them all day. This will help him stop toe walking and with those lower calf muscles.

He continues to have non stop energy and leaves mom and dad exhausted at the end of each day. He has come up with creative ways to climb up to counter tops, turn on and off lights, and destroy anything in his path. He is our little firecracker!

We will continue with his speech therapy and physical therapy and hopefully he’ll keep making progress. We are praying that the neurologist will provide further answers.

Thanks for keeping him in your thoughts and for sending positive messages our way.

Weekend Review

It’s Monday and there is finally a bit of normalcy back in our life. It was a crazy weekend for us.

Thursday, Andrew had his surgery. It went better than expected and we were grateful that many of the “possible” surgeries were not needed. This time the recovery went a bit better than the last time. When he woke up from his last surgery he had what they called post op “delirium” and he began pulling the IV out and was just a bear! This time, they gave him something that let him sleep a bit more and he woke up much more calm.

On Friday we were home. He seemed to be doing well. He was eating a lot of soft foods and popsicles. He seemed a bit more like himself, but we knew he wasn’t 100%. On Saturday, we had a scare as he just didn’t want to eat or drink. We even took him out for ice cream in hopes that would work. Naturally, a trip back to the ER and what does he do? Drinks and eats.

Not sure why he felt the need to grab a winter hat for ice cream, but he did.

That night my wife caught a very cool picture. Let me set this up for you. When I put him to bed, I will lay him in his bed and turn out the lights. I will say prayers with him, cover him up, and turn on his sound machine/night light. Then I’ll put on my reading glasses, grab my mini-flashlight and read my book where he can see me. He will eventually close his eye, knowing that dad is right by him, and go to sleep.

While in our bed that night, he grabbed his sunglasses and put them on. He grabbed his Paw Patrol flashlight and one of the books my wife and I plan on reading. He said, “Wook, Mommy! I Daddy!!”

Little by little – he is acting like himself.

We were home just in time to watch the sunset yesterday. Before the rain, the kids saw fire flies lighting up the back yard. So they ran around trying to catch them. Both were successful!

It’s been years since I’ve chased fireflies, but I have vivid memories of doing so. I hope they will never forget doing it.

Hopefully your weekend was a bit less hectic!

Home Recovering

I wanted to thank each of my readers who said a prayer or sent positive thoughts our way for Andrew’s surgery. All went well and he is home recovering.

We will need to follow up with ENT in about 6 weeks. We also will follow up with sleep/neurology in the weeks ahead.

He was such a trooper. We’re happy he is home. The plan is to take it slow and easy this weekend.

Thanks again for caring.

Sooner Than We Thought

We’ll be sending up a lot of prayers this week.

Andrew’s surgery was schedule to happen in late September. Sam woke up this afternoon saying that the ENT office had called and wanted us to call back as soon as we got the message. They had mentioned a while back that they may want to move the surgery up a little.

They hadn’t called back by the time I left for work today. Sam called me as I pulled in to tell me that they indeed had moved it up … a lot. She posted this earlier today:

Got a phone call today from Andrew’s surgeon that he went over recent testing Based on that, plus the increase in choking and aspiration, it was no longer safe to wait for surgery. So Thursday this sweet boy will go in for yet another surgery. This surgery is a big one, with a whole bunch of scary things. But we are going in with faith that this will be the surgery to fix his little throat completely!

We have no idea how long he will need to stay in the hospital. They informed us of the many possibilities that he/we could be facing. Very scary possibilities, indeed. However, we will be praying that all goes well and that he heals up quickly. This weekend will be very stressful.

If you wouldn’t mind sending some positive vibes, good wishes, or prayers our way, I’d appreciate it.

Random (and cool) Act of Kindness

As you know, they are working on our street. They are ripping up the water and sewer lines and working on a new water main before resurfacing the whole road.

This morning as I was cooking breakfast Sam took Andrew outside because Consumers Energy was out working on something. They had two of their diggers out and Andrew is fascinated by the “Big trucks.”

As they stood watching, one of the workers walked up to Sam. She told him that Andrew loves watching and he asked if he’d like to sit in the digger. He said yes, and the man walked over and turned the machine off and put Andrew up in the cab of the digger.

He was in heaven! I guess he was loving being in there and then looked at Sam a bit scared and said, “All done.” He went back to Sam, who was kicking herself for leaving her phone in the house. She said it would have been such a cool picture.

The guy told Sam that when he was a kid, his dad took him to a building site or somewhere where there was construction going on. A man asked him if he’d like to get in the machine. When he said yes, he got a huge thrill. The man told Sam that it was a core memory that he will never forget. He said, whenever he sees a child watching them work, if he is able, he always tries to let them sit in one of the machines. He hopes that it will become a great memory for whoever sits in it.

Sam didn’t get the man’s name, but kudos to him for being such a nice guy and offering up a once in a lifetime memory for others. I wish I could extend my gratitude and let his bosses know what a great employee they have!

She’s Movin’ On Up!

There is nothing that makes time move faster than watching your children grow. In 6 months, Ella will be 4 years old. It seems like just yesterday that I was blogging about getting her room and crib put together!

Moving from the crib to a toddler bed was the next big step. This is a step that Andrew is getting closer to every day. How in the world has her “big girl bed” lost that status? It is a sad reality, but true. Ella is movin’ on up from her toddler bed to a “real” big girl bed!

Sam and I looked for twin beds on Amazon and we found one that looked cute and will serve a dual purpose.

We opted to get a trundle bed, which Andrew (or a friend/cousin) can use in the future.

The mattress came Monday and It was all rolled up in a box and shrink wrapped. I opened it up and it had to sit flat for 72 hours before you could use it. Thankfully, the bed itself didn’t arrive until yesterday.

Ella was very excited to be sleeping in her new bed ASAP! When I got home from work this morning, she was asking when I was going to build it. Sam had a doctor appointment today and she took the kids with her, so I built it while they were gone. It wasn’t the easiest thing to build in her room, which still had things on the floor, but I got it done.

With her graduation to a twin bed, that meant we needed to get some new sheets and a new bedding set. Sam bought her a Disney Princess set, which she liked, but those are not the sheets on her bed.

Sam’s mom, knowing that Ella was moving to a twin bed soon, saved the butterfly sheet set that used to be on her sister Grace’s bed. You may remember that Grace passed away late last year. Ella was very close to her.

When Sam asked if she wanted her new princess bedding or the butterfly bedding. She instantly said the butterfly one! The conversation went like this:

Ella: Mommy if I use Gracie’s bed sheets then she will come visit me. I miss her so much! I need her to come visit, she has been a good girl for Jesus long enough.

Sam: When you have Gracie’s blankets they will let her come visit you every night in your dreams.

The Sam walked away crying.

May your new bed bring you many visits from Gracie and plenty of sweet dreams, my princess!