Team Thompson » October 2008 Journal Entries » AboutMyBaby - online baby scrapbooks, photo albums, videos, birth and pregnancy announcements

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Fri, Oct 31, 2008 2:51 AM
We celebrated Halloween by going to Disneyland today! It was the first time we all went as a family during a regular Park day. It wasn't too crowded and not too warm. We went to the Tiki Room first so that Noah could see all the birds sing. Then we had lunch at Cafe Orleans and then rode the train all the way around the park. We took pictures at Woody's Halloween Roundup and then walked to Toontown and met Mickey in his house. One last picture in front of the Mickey jack-o-lantern on Main Street and then it was time to go. It was close to Noah's naptime, so he feel asleep in the car and was out cold.

Later that night, we went to the Haan's to celebrate the event. Noah and Joshua looked so darn CUTE in their Chewbacca and Yoda costumes! Too bad it was so warm that it was too hot to keep them on. Noah wore his costume just around his cast and a few people asked if he was supposed to be Tarzan. LOL! Chad wore the Princess Leia costume (complete with the wig - smokin' hot) and I was in the Han Solo costume. I forgot my light saber...grrr. Noah got to go Trick-or-Treating for the first time. He got some great candy and a lot of it from just going down and around the cul-de-sac. He still doesn't know what candy is. But I'm not sure if that will be the case next year.

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Wed, Oct 29, 2008 2:30 AM
We got great news at the orthopaedic's today. Another x-ray of Noah's leg was taken and the dr showed us where "good calcium" was surrounding the bone. So, Noah can get his cast off in THREE weeks! WOO HOO!!!! We scheduled the appt for 11/19 at 9 am! That date won't come soon enough. We are so excited for our little boy!!!

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Tue, Oct 21, 2008 3:10 AM
Noah is officially down to 1 nap a day. I extended the 2 naps/day as long as possible. He just hasn't been that tired for the second nap lately and stays up playing the entire time. He now take one long nap from about 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm. I will put Joshua down for his 2nd nap just after his 3 o'clock bottle, so that there is some overlap and a chance for me to nap, too!

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Sun, Oct 19, 2008 2:33 AM
Joshua is officially a crawler! I was at a baby shower this afternoon when Chad's sent me a video that he took on his phone of Joshua crawling. It was like 10 "steps"! I could hardly believe it! I was sad that I wasn't there for the big moment, but glad that Chad got to experience it.

Noah is getting really strong in his arms. He pulls himself up everywhere. He's in the plank position constantly. He also does a lot of one-armed push-ups. Our little Hercules. He can now pull himself up and then back down the 2 steps in the front of the house. The bar between his legs used to stop him in the beginning, but he's figured out how to get around it. I finally had to put the gate back up in front of the stairway. Otherwise, I'm sure he'd try getting up all the way to the second floor!

Chad figured out how to get Noah to sit at the dinner table with us. He strapped Noah's umbrella stroller to a crate and propped it forward a bit more using some 2x4s. He is a genius! :)

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Sat, Oct 18, 2008 3:16 AM
Noah is standing up now by pulling himself up the couch or the leg of the table. He amazes us every day. He even started "walking" a little bit. Yikes!

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Thu, Oct 16, 2008 3:07 AM
We got the boys dressed up and headed off to the pumpkin patch at Tanaka Farms in Irvine. The set-up was a bit different from last year, so we didn't get a chance to take the exact same picture of Joshua that we took of Noah, but it was close. We got some cute ones I think.

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Tue, Oct 14, 2008 3:05 AM
I realized one of the great things about being a stay-at-home mom: I get to kiss my boys alllll day! :)

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Mon, Oct 13, 2008 3:37 AM
I called the dr's first thing this morning and the nurse said they may have to recast Noah's spica if it is ammonia that we're smelling. I read that it's not something the doctors like to do - something to do with risking not resetting the bone correctly. Plus, Noah would have to go under again. We want to avoid that. The nurse is still trying to get authorization from our insurance to continue seeing the same dr and, if possible, getting us in to see him earlier because of the ammonia smell.

I went to Target today and bought a hair dryer with a cool setting. I dried his cast in the front and back for about 15 minutes. It seemed to work pretty well. I couldn't feel any dampness afterwards. I think I will do that every morning at the very least. The only bad thing is the smell afterwards. Whenever I'm in a public bathroom, I'm sure I'll forever associate the smell with Noah now. Poor guy!

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Sun, Oct 12, 2008 2:35 AM
Joshua is getting stronger every day. He can now push himself up to a sitting position from lying down on his tummy. I even saw him in the "crawling" position for a moment. He is really good at using his feet as a second pair of hands to feel and pick up stuff. It makes me laugh every time I see him do it. He's our little monkey! He's also really good at feeding himself. He gets puffs into his mouth almost every time he tries now! He's also getting more vocal. We have a sound-activated ghost hanging up for Halloween and he was able to set it off 4 times today from screaming. It's supposed to go off when you clap. But I guess anything shrill will do, too. LOL!

Noah did "knuckles" and "high 5" to his bear today. Too cute. He really like the number 9. Sesame Street has a couple of little clips about "9", and he constantly asks "mo!" (which mean "more") afterwards over and over again. He also looooves Elmo. That's not news. But he now asks "mo mah-nah" which means "more Elmo!" Anything more than 1, he calls "2". Noah set the ghost off 2 times today!

After the boys got up from their nap, I tried strapping Noah into the double stroller. It worked! The straps are extended as much as possible and are super snug, but it works! We took a nice 30-min walk around the park today. It felt great! Noah loves asking for a cattail to play with while we walk around.

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Sat, Oct 11, 2008 3:42 AM
Noah is doing ok. He gets super needy sometimes. And he was super cranky at dinner. He didn't have much of a nap, so we eventually guessed that maybe he was tired and put him down at 7 pm (an hour earlier than normal). He fell right asleep, so that was probably it.

Chad & I noticed a very distinct ammonia smell coming from his cast. It's been smelling worse and worse each day, but this was the first time it smelled really sharp and pungent. I'm trying to find out anything I can online until I can call the dr on Monday.

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Sun, Oct 5, 2008 10:58 PM
Chad picked up an OT day today, so it was just me and the boys. I slept so hard during the boys’ morning nap – the hardest that I can remember in a looong time. I was dreaming and I couldn’t wake up. I was like I wanted to stay in the dream, but then I knew I had to get up (because Joshua was crying). I finally had to force myself to wake up. It was really strange.

Noah did an amazing thing this afternoon. I was playing with the boys in the front room and left to go to the bathroom. When I got back, Noah had scooted himself off the pillows and was moving! I was shocked! I grabbed my camera and got a couple of good videos of him. It’s like he flipped a switch. He was going everywhere. He even tried going up the two steps near the front door, but he couldn’t manage it. Still, he totally impressed me today. He had so much energy and didn’t let anything stop him. He started playing with one of his push toys, and I could see him wanting to stand up and push it. Soon, he started saying “up!” So, I picked him up so that he could play with it a little better, but of course he couldn’t push it like he wanted to. So, he got frustrated and then said “down!” and then just started crying because he realized he couldn’t do what he wanted to. It was so sad. I wanted to cry, but I held back because I don’t want him to see me upset over his cast. I tried to console him by caressing his face and rubbing his arm, but he just pushed me away. : ( I let him cry and get it all out. He calmed down after a little while and then I moved the boys to the TV room to get Noah’s mind of his push toy. My poor little guy.

It’s been 2 weeks so far – hopefully ¼ of the way through with this darn cast. Now that Noah knows he can move, it will be interesting to see what progress he makes in 6+ weeks he’s got left.

It is really hard to change Joshua’s diaper now. All he wants to do when you pick up his legs is twist and roll over. It’s kinda funny, but only when you’re not trying to clean up a dirty diaper.

Noah has been playing with Play-Doh a lot lately. He really has fun…asking me to make ball after ball after ball and then just smashing them together to have me do it all over again. LOL! I really have to watch Joshua closely though. I found him with another piece of it in his mouth! It was a pretty big one. I swept his mouth with my finger, then I took a tissue and wiped the inside of his mouth as best as I could. I kept finding more and more green Play-Doh with each wipe. Yuck.

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Mom & Dad: Mama & Papa watch the videos this morning in our hotel room. Enjoyed seeing the boys playing around, specially Noah. He is doing so good, can't wait to see both of them and all of you. We'll be home soon.

traci: I am so happy to hear he is moving around, that is awesome!

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Sat, Oct 4, 2008 8:58 PM
Jennifer Magill’s son Troy celebrated his 2nd birthday today. It was supposed to be at the park, but it started raining about an hour before it was supposed to start. So, they moved it to the Round Table Pizza Parlor just a few minutes away from our house. We were thankful for a reason to get Noah out of the house. Chad said he drove the boys around for about an hour the other day when I was sleeping, just to give them a change of scenery.

Troy’s party was very fun. Jennifer’s family and friends were so friendly and kind. She had a bunch of stickers and background papers for the kids to play with. And she also hired a great balloon artist and face painter. Everyone had such fun balloons. There was one request that she didn’t know how to do. Noah got a cool airplane and an Elmo hat. All the kids looked so cute with their faces painted. Noah was hesitant at first, so Chad got his hand painted to maybe sway him. It didn’t. Joshua got a cute little mouse face. He looked so dang cute. By the end of the party, Noah said he wanted his face painted, too. So, he got a turtle, just like the birthday boy.

Overall, Noah did pretty well. He got restless a few times, so Chad walked him around the building. He figured out how to make the umbrella stroller work for Noah – YAY! If we don’t get the wheelchair, the stroller will be a good alternative.

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Fri, Oct 3, 2008 10:57 PM
Joshua started hanging on to me a lot today. He’s trying to pull up and loves to stand now. His feet still turn in a lot, so I find him standing on his ankles instead of his feet which worry me. I don’t want him to break anything either!

Joshua finally ate a decent lunch and dinner today. Maybe he’s finally turning a corner on eating. Maybe it was because he got carrots today. We haven’t tried that food in a while and he ate it all up. YAY! I need to go buy more baby food carrots!

Noah had a decent day today. He still get really fussy at times and doesn’t know what he wants. He’s also still screaming “up!” or “down!” or whatever he wants, instead of asking politely. I’m constantly saying “how to do ask nicely?” And he’ll say “please”. I really want him to start saying “please” automatically with all his requests.

I’m starting to figure out some of Noah’s words. Play-Doh is “bah-dah”. Elmo is “mah-nah”. Speaking of Elmo, Noah kept saying “mo mah-nah” today. So, we must have watched the same Elmo’s World episode about 5 times in a row. He loves his Elmo!

On a positive note, I left his bear upstairs all day and he only asked for it a couple times. I was able to distract him with another toy and he forgot all about it! YAY!

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Wed, Oct 1, 2008 10:57 PM
Chad got the day off so we could take Noah to see the orthopedic doctor. The doctor had another x-ray taken of Noah's leg. His femur looks more out of alignment now than it did in the original x-ray. The two parts of the bone are more angled so you can see the fracture even more clearly. My heart sank when I saw that. But the doctor said that the bow in the femur is "normal" and that he would have accepted even 20 degrees more of a bend before he'd consider redoing his cast. The doctor was satisfied with Noah's progress and dismissed our concerns. He said when Noah is completely healed in the next 7-9 weeks, we won't even be able to tell he broke his leg. I sure hope so.

He gave us a prescription for a pediatric reclining wheelchair for Noah. We are just waiting to see if Chad's insurance will cover the cost.

Not much other news except Noah continues to get stinkier and stinkier. Pee-uwww! It's really hard to keep that cast clean and dry. It will make the 7-9 weeks seem even longer.

Since Noah had been moving on his own, I decided to stop setting my alarm at 2 am to check on him. Chad said he found him on his stomach the other day, too.

Comments:
traci: If it's any comfort, I didn't think Noah was stinky at all last week or the week before, and I was sniffing him! Love you all!

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