Swimming and other going ons

We went swimming today at a friends house and another friend came too. We had tons of fun with 9 kids and 3 moms. I was in the house trying to get Isabelle down for a nap and poor Matthew had to wait until I came out to go swimming. He waited in a chair on the sidelines watching all the kids have fun. When I finally came out he said, "Is it my turn now?" all excited. I feel bad sometimes all the things he has to wait for as Isabelle takes my time or attention. He's being a trooper though even if he is a stinker sometimes.


I bought him this floatie thing this year and it's helping him swim better. We start lessons on Monday for a few weeks. I'm excited!

Matthew ends up in the funniest positions on his bed. I just had to take a pic of him on the very end of his bed on Memorial day.

He had just woken up. He didn't eat much the day before and woke up shaky and threw up twice that morning. I think his blood sugar was low. After some saltine crackers and 7 up he was better the rest of the day. So...we had a VERY low key Memorial Day.

This is where Matthew is relegated to most of the time while potty training. We worked on it last weekend and will again this weekend. We have more Star Wars figurines as an incentive to not pee his pants. I know he knows what he's doing because he'll go hide and pee his pants. This weekend he hid behind our rocking chair, under the table, in the pantry, in his room where he would promptly pee his pants. He won't outright pee right in front of us. It's the trick of catching him and making him go potty. We are going to be better this weekend about sticking to him like glue so he can't hide to do his business.

After church on Sunday. I love this yellow dress from Pottery Barn that I bought just after finding out I was having a girl. I think it was originally a $45-$60 dress that I got for about $10. I love deals like that!

She is really starting to smile and it is just so cute!

Isabelle Update

We went and saw the Pediatric Pulmonary Specialist yesterday. When I called on Monday to make the appt with the Dr. my pediatrician recommended he was booked until end of June so I scheduled with a different Dr. in the same practice. Yesterday I arrive at my appt (about an hours drive) and the check in girl tells me that they can't locate the Dr. and would I like to reschedule. I said no I just drove an hour. She told me to wait and she would see what was going on. Come to find out the Dr. I had scheduled with was still on vacation and so the Dr. I wanted to originally see was on call at the hospital and left his rounds to see me and another lady who had been waiting over an hour.

After the Dr. looked and listened to Isabelle he told me she has tachypnea which is rapid breathing (we knew that) and stridor which is a whistling breathing sound when something in the trachea or larynx is blocked or partially blocked. The next step in the process is to do a laryngoscopy which is taking a scope down her nose to look at her trachea and larynx (about a 5 min look and Isabelle will be awake). The Dr. will be able to see what is blocking she'll eventually outgrow or if she'll need surgery. He'll also be able to see if she has reflux or not. I think when she's eating because it's hard to breathe that's why she's gagging or choking and she probably won't have reflux.

The good thing about seeing the Dr. that I did yesterday is that he's now the Dr. assigned to her and I think he's probably the best one in the practice. The bad thing is that he's extremely busy. If we're lucky we can get the scope done next week otherwise he's going on vacation the first 2 weeks of June and then we are going on vacation so it will be the end of June beginning of July before we can get the scope done. Cross your fingers somehow they can squeeze us in next week. I'd rather know what's going on instead of waiting another month.

Isabelle otherwise is very healthy and is growing like a weed. She gained another pound and ounce since last week and is quickly outgrowing her newborn clothes.


Relaxin on the boppy. She loves her binkie!






I took this pic before he realized it.

He told me to stop taking pics

He was pretty annoyed I wouldn't stop bugging him so I stopped with the pics.

Star Wars

We've been watching Star Wars Episodes 4 & 5 on Friday nights the last couple of weeks and Matthew LOVES these movies. They have everything that is right up his alley-pew pews (guns), super swords (light sabers) and lots of action. Jordan and Matthew ran to a store called Frys Electronics on Saturday and the passageway to get to the checkout stands is super long and full of enticing items. Jordan found these cute little star wars guys for Matthew to help him be good. They are the perfect first action figures for him to play with.

I think these guys are so adorable. We need to find more.

On the Isabelle front, she has been breathing really fast since she was born (which I just kindof thought was her) and so the ped last week wanted to get some tests done to rule out some things (nothing too serious). We went for an xray last week of her chest and then the next day an upper GI barium test. Isabelle had to drink this barium liquid while they took xrays to make sure the liquid went into the right places. Everything looked good on both xrays. Isabelle frequently either starts choking or can't catch her breath while eating and has to come off and catch her breath or cough the liquid out. This might point to a reflux problem. We are going to see a pediatric pulmonology specialist on Wednesday to see if she can figure out if there really is a problem or not. Wish us luck.

I'm just glad I'm on maternity leave as it takes at least 1/2 the day to do these appointments. Our babysitter has been great to come and play with Matthew so I can run errands and do these appointments. It's much easier not to have to entertain and worry/stress out about what Matthew is doing.

Pictures from the last couple of weeks

A few more awake photos. She's slowly starting to be more awake between feedings. I love her chubby cheeks.

Matthew wants to hold her and kiss her more and more. He thinks she's "so cute" and is being the sweetest older brother. Melts my heart!

At the Zoo. Our friend Kari took this adorable and all grown up pic of Matthew.

Also at the Zoo. Love this one of Matthew blowing a Raspberry.


We were taking pics of Isabelle and Matthew and Matthew wanted me to take some pics of his blocks. He is so funny! He loves to make "Super Swords" so I'm hoping to get a good picture of one of them soon. It's amazing the imagination that he has.

Matthew stayed up late on Friday night and then got up at 6:30 for who knows what reason and fell asleep at 2 pm for a rare nap on our ottoman (his favorite place in the house) while watching Myth Busters with me. We also finally got his overgrown shaggy hair cut.

Are You Talking to Me?

We've slacked on posting Isabelle pictures lately, but we'll try to make up for that tomorrow.

In the meantime, I (Jordan) wanted to post something that Matthew said today that cracked me up. We were at Target (just the two of us, doing some last-minute Mother's Day shopping), and we were in the cameras/video games/music/movies section (I'm sure there's a more concise way to say that) after a long and difficult journey through the toy area. Matthew got particularly hung up on the aisle that had little "plug-and-play" video game controllers and wasn't too happy when I made him move on. Anyway, as we stood there near the camera area, a girl who works at Target walked past us and asked someone else, "Can I help you?", to which Matthew replied, "Yeah. I want a game." Killed me.

It's fairly amazing (and a little scary) how much of a sponge a kid that age can be and how fast his language skills are developing at this point. Right after that, he led me to another part of that section, pointed to a big poster of that Despereaux movie, and said, "Can you help me find that super-sword one? I can't see it anywhere."



Nothing remarkable about that in-and-of-itself, I know, but it was kind of that moment for me where I realized that my little boy has sort of crossed over into a different stage in his life.

All by Myself

So this is the new mantra at our house-decided by Matthew. He now wants to do everything "all by myself". We can actually use this against him now! If I want his hands washed (he hates me to do it), I'll ask him if he can go wash his hands all by himself and he'll go do it. He might get water everywhere and all over himself but he does it.

Sometimes it's not so great when for instance he wants to pour his own orange juice or do other things that will make quite the mess. There are some things I don't want him to do yet by himself and that makes for quite the tantrums and crying.

We're still working on potty training and if he wants to watch any shows or movie he has to "try" and go potty. It's worked 3 times today so maybe that's the button we had to push. I also told him this morning that he had his own potty and to try and go all by himself. He tried twice this morning because he was motivated to watch Mickey Mouse and to do it by himself. He wanted to watch Spongebob this afternoon and I said what do you need to do first to watch Spongebob and he said go pee pee and then headed right into the bathroom. He'll get a treat and to play computer games when he actually poops or pees on the toilet. I know he'll eventually get it. It might take 2 years but he'll eventually learn. I'll be mortified if he heads into sunbeams in January not being potty trained.