Bye bye, Hair!

Dan can grow some really good hair. I have to admit, it is pretty amazing. Sometimes (before he got a hair cut and shaved) I would find myself staring at it out of awe, like it was one of the wonders of the world.



As a special event, and because Dan is fun, he grew out both his hair and his beard (referred to respectively as Hair and Beard) for a few months. The longer it got, the more I wished it gone. I'm all for my husband having a little fun, but I started to miss that wonderful face of his!



The hair left in stages. First Hair was cut.



Then Beard was shaved.



Then Dan got sad.



But look at this handsome man!! Oh how I have missed groomed Dan.

Croup: Season 2, Round 4

I lied. The NEXT post will be about HAIR! :)

So. Elijah's Cough has been lingering in his body since Thanksgiving. It's been on a little roller coaster, getting better, almost non-existent, then worse and disturbing his sleep and up and down and up and down. It has not really gotten BAD, though, not the BAD that we saw last year, but it has not completely gone away, either. Yesterday Cough kicked things up a notch and I could hear in the way Elijah was breathing that he was probably going to get croup, so we gave him a preventative dose of steroids and a nebulizer treatment before bed.

At 10:00, just as Dan and I were drifting off to sleep, we heard the stridor over the baby monitor and we began our family Croup Drill. This was the worst episode so far this year, and it even rivaled some of the scarier episodes from last year. Elijah got pretty scared when he couldn't catch a breath and that made things worse. Dan took him outside (I wonder if our neighbors think it's weird that we occasionally like to hang out outside in our underwear?) so the cold air could open up his airway. It took a few minutes, but as always our little trick worked. We gave him an epi neb and put him back to bed and listened to quite a bit of coughing throughout the rest of the night.

He is still junky this morning and I'm sure Cough will be hanging around and disturbing sleep throughout the Porta household this week like a champ. At least our little boy is safe. I will never get used to those scary episodes. They certainly do a good job of freaking me out.

Early bird Elijah

Dan enjoyed a weekend with his friends in the northern woods, playing football in the snow, catching up and savoring the final hours of ALL OF THAT HAIR. Meanwhile, Elijah and I were in our warm, cozy house, listening to music, doing a lot of walking, being silly and having tons of play time.



Elijah decided that he wanted to try to make me as tired as he possibly could, waking up at unfathomably early times each morning (3:59 and 4:47) and only taking one-hour naps.



This week we are going to experiment with his bed time to see if we can get this early waking under control. I think he has the Early Bird gene (where he got this, I have no idea), but I also think we can move his wake-up times to a more tolerable hour. 6:00 would be great!



Have a great week, everyone!

My next post will be all about HAIR!

More silliness

I'll talk about our cold, Daddyless, early-morninged, yet fun weekend later. For now, here is a silly video from this morning. (And yes, once I realized he was actually drinking out of the cup while walking I took it away.)

Kathy, somehow Elijah remembered that you guys (well, "Baby Isaac") gave him this turtle during his last open heart surgery. He loves it!!

Anyone have any idea what he says to me at the very end?

Some funny Elijah stuff..

He calls the "carts" at the grocery store "carpets."

He loves it when I kiss his neck, which I call his "juicy neck" because it is oh so juicy, so he will lean into me and make a kissing sound and say, "Doocey Eck!" That is my cue to (very willingly) give him neck smooches and make him giggle like crazy.

One day a few weeks ago I was trying to get him excited about going to Wal-Mart with Dan and me so I leaned in close to his face so our noses were touching and said, "WAaaaaaallllll-MAAaaarrrrrrt." He thought it was the world's funniest thing, so at least once a day since then he has leaned into me and said, "WAaaaaaallllll-MAAaaarrrrrrt" and started laughing.

He loves it when I pucker my lips and then move my lips from side to side. For some reason this is hilarious. So now he tries to do it, which looks ten times as funny, I think.

We recently started playing a CD of children's songs that Elijah ADORES. This CD is seriously magic for children, or at least for our child. He asks to listen to these songs constantly, which is nice because it is a welcome replacement for tv in the morning or at bedtime and I think it has really helped his speech, too. One of the songs talks about a kid falling down and getting an owie on his leg. So Elijah often asks for "owie on weg song" as he gives us a sad face as if he is feeling so badly for the poor kid who got hurt.

He has shown such compassion for things/people recently. If someone gets hurt on a cartoon or in a book or if anything bad happens to an object or person that he is aware of, he gets VERY upset. The funniest instance I have seen.. He has a book where a little boy throws a muffin out the window for a moose to eat. I pointed to the muffin, which is in mid-air, and Elijah got worried about the muffin's well-being. MUFFIN!MUFFIN!MUFFIN!MUFFIN! MUFFIN FALL?!?!? I have convinced him that the muffin will surely land right in the moose's mouth, so now he feels comfortable about how the muffin will fare. (I won't tell him that it would be better off landing on the ground.)

Swim therapy

I haven't mentioned yet that Elijah started swim therapy a few weeks ago. I wanted to wait a few weeks to see how things went before I made any comments about it. Well, we are three sessions in and we are pulling him out.

The first session went ok. The second session brought a few tears. The third session was awful. I sat at the edge of the pool and cried as Elijah screamed MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY! as if someone was trying to cut off his fingers. Ok, I know when my little boy is uncomfortable (see: most PT sessions) and I know when he is terrified. During this swim session, he was 100% terrified. His teacher kept pushing and pushing him to stand and walk and float alone in the water and no matter how upset he got, she just kept pushing. I was ready to dive into the pool, clothes on and all, and rescue my scared little boy. It was heart-wrenching.

At the end of the session he grabbed me around the neck and would not let go. He kept saying HOME! BYE SWIMMING POOL! I felt terrible for just sitting and watching all of the trauma, so I hugged him tight and told him I loved him about a million times. Never again. It isn't worth it.

So now we will be doing regular PT every week like we were before. Bye bye swim therapy!

Snow!

I don't know if he will remember this, but my dad told me about a vivid dream he had about Elijah a couple months before he was born. He told me that he woke up from the dream knowing three things about our little boy: 1. He would be chubby, 2. He would be extremely stubborn/strong-willed, and 3. He would adore snow.

At the time, I thought "Ha!" about number one. We were having a baby with serious heart defects! We had done our research, so we knew that heart babies typically were not described as being "chubby." Despite the odds, Elijah was always a chubby baby, so that part of my dad's dream was surprisingly right.

Regarding number two, well, we all know that "strong-willed" is one of the main words used to describe Elijah. :)

And number three, the love for snow, I have wondered about since my dad told me about the dream. It was confirmed Christmas weekend that that was right on, too!

I think it's pretty cool that his dream was so accurate.



Elijah certainly did adore being in the snow. He didn't want to move around at all, which wasn't a huge surprise, but he did NOT want to go back inside.



I went inside after a while and I could hear Elijah yelling, "MAMA INSIDE!" I opened the door to say hello and he said, "Shut da door, Mama! Mama in!" He saw his fun little snowy world as being "in." I thought it was cute that he wanted me to come "inside" to the outside.



And how cute is it that this snowsuit was Dan's snowsuit as a little munchkin?



And this was his unhappy face upon learning that it was time to go inside.

New walking legs

Are you getting tired of our videos yet? I can't help but post the new silly walking Elijah was doing tonight. And doesn't Dan look like a mountain man? He is shaving/cutting off the hair next Sunday! I CAN'T WAIT!!



This past weekend was so different from the previous weekend. Elijah was a very well-behaved little boy and the majority of our time together was pleasant and fun (although bitterly cold when forced to walk into the outdoors). Maybe all the walking distracted him?

The first two days of walking were exciting for him, but after a few falls on the tile he has become a little bit more hesitant to zoom around the house. As with everything, we are letting him do this at his own pace (with a little gentle coaxing) so he doesn't get overwhelmed and frustrated. He gets nervous about walking if we are anywhere but our home, which is just fine for now. His confidence will increase as his skills get better.

I have been an emotional pregnant wreck lately, so every little thing makes me cry and one of the things I cannot stop crying about is Elijah's new walking skills. Over the past almost-three years, I have wondered many times if we would ever see this day. OUR LITTLE BOY IS WALKING!!! AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING! THANK YOU, GOD!



I will be out of town for work meetings for two days and one night this week, so I have been soaking up all the Elijah time that I possibly can. Not like I don't always do that anyway. Mommy-Elijah time is the best. (I am now officially "Mommy" and no longer "Mama.")

We got to listen to the baby's heartbeat again today. What a comforting sound. I just started feeling some punches and kicks coming from in there, too! Next Thursday I will get a Level 2 ultrasound and at the end of January I will go back for a fetal echocardiogram. We are excited to get a glimpse of Elijah's little sibling! I have had a very strong feeling we will be having another boy, but we will find out for sure next week.

Elijah's cough/cold is finally nearly gone. We're hoping this is the new trend for the new year. I hope you all are having a great start to your new year! Thank you so much for checking in on us!

More walking!!

We knew Elijah would just decide to walk one day and never look back. Look at the little show-off, patting his tummy while walking. :)

I LOVE IT! I still cannot believe it as I see him zooming around the house.

WOW!!! There absolutely could not be a better way to start the year.

WE ARE WALKING!!!!!

This is what has been going on in our house since yesterday. What an amazing way to start 2010! We have very patiently waited almost THREE YEARS for this moment and Elijah has worked sooo very hard to get to this point. I cannot even begin to explain the feelings I have right now.

I'm so proud of my amazing little boy.

Goodbye 2009. You were a great year.

I'm a little bit sad to say goodbye to 2009. It was a really really good year for us. 2010 will bring some major changes for our family, and I feel partly afraid but mostly excited about it all.

Happy New Year to you all! (Turn up your volume and enjoy our 2009 slide show!)

Potty chair

Don't tell Elijah I'm posting these photos on the internet!



We haven't made much progress lately with potty training, but I feel good that we've gotten the process started.



I'm not sure why he was wearing boots as part of his potty attire, but he could not look any cuter, in my opinion.



Although we're not necessarily making progress with potty training, progress IS being made in other areas.

Elijah had a VERY exciting physical therapy session last night (once the initial standard drama ended). He initiated independent walking repeatedly and took up to TWELVE steps completely on his own each time. He is getting so so so so close!

Things I have heard E say in the past few days:

"Let's go find Daddy!"
"Let's go look!"
"Here comes Daddy!"

I'm so proud of our little talker and almost-walker!!

Suggles and snuggies

Jumping back into reality this week was a bit hard for me. I love spending day after day with my little man. It usually takes a while after a long break from work before I feel normal again. At least Dan has been home with Elijah this week (no daycare and no school), so I have been able to run home for lunch a couple times for some mid-day snuggles.



Speaking of snuggles, or "suggles," as Elijah calls them, the LoveSac is always the coziest place to hang out in our home, especially in the winter. Elijah has recently discovered this. And between the hours of 7:00 and 9:00 p.m., you can find ME buried somewhere in the LoveSac's folds of glorious comfort.



Elijah caught another tiny cold last weekend that mostly just hung out in his nose. Then he caught another cold on Tuesday that worked its way down into his chest and airway. And his little body continues to endure The Cough. I thought we might be able to avoid long visits from that annoying guest this winter, but he has been faithfully hanging out in Elijah's body since Thanksgiving. We are praying for another nice reprieve! I do have to say, Cough still hasn't come close to disturbing our lives as much as he did last winter. Not even close. We have only had to get out the nebulizer a handful of times this year. Last year we had it out multiple times every single day for basically eight straight months.



This is the face Elijah makes when he is saying, "NOOO!"



And my little brother will be sooo jealous when he reads this. The super soft blanket that you see in these photos was one of my Christmas gifts this year. It's a Snuggie! With pockets!!



We hope everyone is having a good week and enjoying the last little bit of 2009! Thanks for checking in on us!

Happenings from our Christmas weekend

We hung out without clothes on, minus boots and a diaper. (Ok, only one of us did that.)



Elijah asked me a lot if he could take a "bite" of my water, or whatever I happened to be drinking at the time.

Dan and I poured sparkling pear juice into champagne flutes and Elijah thought it was hilarious to "tink" his milk cup against our glasses and say, "CHEERS!"

We snuggled up and watched some fun movies and read a lot of books.

Elijah enjoyed closing himself in the cupboard in the guest bathroom. This kid is not afraid of dark, enclosed spaces.



We did not leave our house much, which was nice and also not so nice. We learned that Defiant Elijah is more prone to exposing himself after being cooped up inside for a few days.

We made sure to tell Jesus "Happy birthday!" on Christmas Day.

We did NOT: clean, work on potty training, eat vegetables or do laundry (except for Elijah's sheets/blankets after the random bloody nose he got on Saturday night).

It snowed a lot.



Elijah played in the snow for the first time! Actually, he just sat in the snow. But he loved it!

He also refused a couple entire meals, which has been happening with increasing frequency.

He explored the art of pushing Mama and Daddy's buttons.

And he got a ton of loot from family and friends.



He loved ALL of his Christmas gifts, but his absolute favorites seem to be: Thomas the train flashlight and Elmo computer from Grandma, Thomas the Train book from Auntie Christine and toy motorcycle and latch board from Dan and me.

He thought it was hilarious to shine his flashlight (fwash-wight) on us or random objects and say, "SHINE MAMA! SHINE DADDY! SHINE THOBAS (Thomas the Train)! SHINE WALL! SHINE TB (tv)! SHINE UPSHAIRS!"



There was a lot of singing and dancing going on in our house, mostly to Elijah's new favorite "Uh Oh" song and also to "We Fall Down," which he likes for us to perform with actions. This got a little bit exhausting after multiple performances.

Speaking of exhausting, Elijah enjoyed being "flown" around the downstairs by Dan or me. "Mama fly? Daddy fly? Peeeeease?" Sweetie, you weigh THIRTY POUNDS!

Elijah started calling me "Mommy" on occasion, instead of "Mama." He also continued calling me "Baby Mama/Mommy," which he has been doing for a while. ??

Dan and I were constantly being asked to draw specific pictures on Elijah's magna-doodle. Things we drew: Big Squash (#1 request), Larry the Cucumber, Bob the Tomato, The Peach (we're back in a Veggie Tales mode), a boot, a pocket (??), Lightning McQueen, yogurt, milk, Buzz Lightyear (this is tough), Thomas the Train, Percy the Train, Emily the Train, James the Train, a snowman, Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa, a cactus, a hat, our house, a water buffalo, and the list goes on..



We went out for breakfast on Christmas Eve and Elijah cried as he eagerly anticipated eating his french toast. "Fen toas, Fen toas, Fen toas!" was uttered through impatient tears until it arrived at our table.

I ate WAY too much food, but yum, Christmas treats are soooo delicious!

We spent Christmas Eve evening with Dan's family. Church was nice, dinner was scrumptious (homemade raviolis that DAN helped make) and family time was wonderful.

We played with play-doh and painted pictures.



We counted our blessings MANY times. We are truly thankful for all that we have.


We hope that all of our family and friends had a wonderful Christmas, as well!

Some videos, finally!

Like I have said before, it is really hard to get good video of Elijah walking. This is the best I could do for now.



Here is some of Elijah's talking, well, actually, singing. He's doing one of his favorite things..sitting at the computer and listening to music. He actually did a lot more talking (singing) before I turned the camera on (of course), but you'll get to hear a little bit of the sweet voice.



Today is the last day of my long weekend and I am sad. Tomorrow it's back to the real world. :(

Pics from the long weekend to come!

Hair, hair, everywhere!

I just grabbed Elijah and set him in my lap to give him a squeeze and he said, "Down, Mama. Play toys!" I guess that means he enjoys the things he got for Christmas!

We have had a good couple of days together. I have some fun Elijah pics to share, but for now I will leave you with this hairiness that Elijah and I currently live with. I think Dan is under there somewhere.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Pretend sleep

One of Elijah's new things is to ask us to put him into his bed in the middle of the day. Things usually go something like this:

Elijah: In bed!
Me or Dan: You want to get into bed? Now?
E: Yes, Mom (or Dad). Pease, Mom (or Dad).
M or D: Ok, here you go.

Once in bed...

E: Suggle suggle! (as he snuggles with his blankets)
M or D: Good night!
E: Ight Ight, Mom (or Dad).
M or D: See ya!
E: See ya. Wight (light) off!
M or D: Ok, good night!
E: Mama (or Daddy) out!
M or D: Really?
E: Pease shut da door!

Once I close the door I listen in and usually cannot hear him making any noise at all. Or sometimes he will be fake snoring. I wait a few minutes and go back in and...

E: WAKE UP!
M or D: Time to wake up, Elijah!
E: Time gool!
M or D: Yes, it's time to go to school!
E: Miss bus!
M or D: You're going to miss the bus!

Do you think he's excited for school?

I love my silly kid.

A weekend full of Kickus joy

I have been extremely organized, productive and timely this Christmas season (it's the pregnancy). It has felt wonderful to be finished with the stressful parts of the holidays so I can actually truly enjoy the fun and meaningful parts. And it's not even Christmas yet!

We spent a lot of time with family and friends this past weekend and it was wonderful! This photo of Auntie Lynn ("Auntie Inn") and Elijah is my favorite from the weekend. My 10-year-old niece, Emma, shot this! I could munch on that deliciously chubby Elijah neck like it was a cinnamon roll.



Do I have a beautiful family, or what? Here are Auntie Lissa ("Auntie Issa") and cousin Kaleigh, ("Kayyee") snuggling.



And cousin Emma, the budding photographer.



I only have a two-day work week this week, woohoooo! We plan to spend Christmas Eve with Dan's family and the rest of the weekend is set aside for some quality Mama-Daddy-Elijah time.



Elijah is still coughing occasionally. Overall he is sleeping well, so we haven't let it stress us out too much. He got his H1N1 booster last week, so it felt good to check that off the list.



Have a great Kickus week, everyone! Thanks for checking in! (I will probably never pronounce "Christmas" correctly again. "Kickus" is just too cute!)

Happy tears are flowing

Recently at the place where Elijah receives outside speech and physical therapy, his therapists tested some of his adaptive skills to see how well he knows how to do things like get dressed and wash his hands. And, well, he just didn't know how to do any of these things. At first I felt like a pretty terrible mother for not having taught him these skills. I carried this weight around with me for a couple of weeks before I talked to Elijah's wonderful ECSE teacher about it.

She reminded me that we have not had the opportunity to teach Elijah a lot of adaptive skills because of his delayed gross motor development. Think about how difficult it would be to pull up your pants or go to the sink and wash your hands without being able to walk or stand independently. He isn't able to do lot of the tasks that fall into the "adaptive" category because not being able to walk greatly hinders him.

In order for Elijah to have qualified for the ECSE preschool that he will be going to in February (yay!), it was required that he need assistance in two main areas. A few months ago, those two areas were clearly gross motor and speech. Now that he's talking like a superstar, his two new areas are gross motor and adaptive skills.

We sat down and chatted with a team of amazing ladies yesterday regarding Elijah's IEP (Individual Education Plan) for special education. I choked back tears throughout the entire meeting because I just could not believe the amazing things that were being said about him and the positive things that were written on the report lying on the table in front of me.

The speech pathologist spoke first and she said that Elijah falls well within the normal range for speech (minus articulation), so her services are no longer needed. WOW! The occupational therapist said that, again, Elijah falls well within the normal range and that HER services are no longer needed, either. WOW again! The one therapist he does still need is his physical therapist (she will help him with both his gross motor and adaptive skills delays), so his PT wrote out some great objectives for him to accomplish while he is at school.

Elijah will start preschool on February 23rd! He will go for 2.5 hours, two mornings a week. His teacher and PT set some challenging yet attainable goals for him, so they will be working with him on his specific needs each time he is in the classroom. A lot of his goals have to do with him using his walker and this makes me smile. I love the thought of my little Elijah cruising down the school hallways in his walker! I asked him yesterday if he was excited about going to school and he giggled like he was the happiest kid on the planet. I don't know if he truly knows what "school" means, but he will get to find out soon enough!

I am so happy that he qualifies for this preschool program. I believe it will be extremely beneficial for his development in all areas. I think he is a kid who will really thrive in school. We met his teacher yesterday, and we already know the speech therapist who will also be in the classroom, and we love both of them. I am also happy that Elijah is doing well enough to get rid of speech and occupational therapy through the school district! (He still gets speech every other week through his outside therapy and will get assistance with articulation from the ST in his classroom.) Six months ago, we never would have dreamed that all of this could be a possibility before he turned three!

And, I keep thinking about the dream I had about one year ago. That pretty much sums up the rest of my happy tears.

I am so so proud of my little boy.