Hair Brothers

Check out these long-haired #BROS! :)

Part of me does not want to cut their gorgeous hair!

We attended the boys' school conferences tonight. Both went well! Sammy is above average in every area. He is a good friend and a good student. Elijah has progressed IMMENSELY from last year. He is great at math and reading and he is controlling himself much better than last year. Both of our boys have AMAZING teachers and we are so grateful for them.

Elijah BEGGED for us to put him to sleep tonight, which could possibly indicate sickness. We are praying against it, but....more to come!

Wordsmiths

We had another busy weekend filled with friends and fun. We ventured out of town for a night to spend time with friends we don't get to see very often. We took the boys sledding and had a BLAST, even despite Sammy's pleas not to force him to do such a dreaded thing. :) I was so proud of how adventurous he was once he experienced the fun.

Dan and I have been clinging to a sickness for the past week that we can't seem to shake. The boys have been in mostly good spirits and making me laugh all the time. Yesterday they had the day off for Presidents' Day, so we went to see a movie and spent a relaxing day together.

Maybe it's the exhaustion I've felt lately, but I've been feeling so sad about the idea of the boys growing up. When I buy them clothes, I always find myself in the little-little boy section wishing they still fit into the cute, innocent dinosaur shirts. The big-little boy section is still foreign to me, with t-shirt prints that I don't understand. Skateboarding and video game references maybe? There is a kiddy play area at a mall close to our house that the boys have LOVED playing at since they were babies. Well now they are too big for the toys in the play area, so instead of facing that fact I just avoid the mall altogether. That happens to be where we get their hair cut, which is part of the reason they both look like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. If I bring them for haircuts, they will ask to play and I will have to explain that they are too big and can never play there again and likely will start sobbing my eyes out. I wish they could stay little forever.

Speaking of haircuts, just this morning Sammy came into the bathroom and said, "Mom. PLEASE give me a haircut. I just looked in the mirror and this hair makes me look SO SILLY." I helped him comb it down a bit and promised a haircut this week.

Adding to their big-boyness has come a surge of big words. I've noticed both boys using words that I don't even hear adults use in everyday vocabulary. I have heard Elijah replacing "finishing" with "completing," "trying" with "attempting" and "keep going" with "continuing." Then yesterday I was telling the boys about a silly dream I had had about a cow who was grazing in our front yard. Sammy said, "I am visualizing a cow munching on our bushes." My five-year-old used the word "visualizing" in a sentence. This is crazy!

This coming weekend is Elijah's ninth birthday (9! wow!), so we are gearing up for that. I have jotted down a few funny things that have happened and been said in the past few days..

- Sammy has been standing next to the curb and sticking out his thumb when the bus pulls up in the morning. Hitchhiking to school at such a young age!

- Both boys, but especially Elijah, has been needing so much physical contact with me recently. He wedges himself backward into me and asks me to wrap my arms around him tightly. I try to always say yes when he asks for this.

- Yesterday we went to see The Good Dinosaur in the theater. The first few scenes were a little rough. The Dino Dad died pretty quickly and then the main dino almost drowned in a river. Sammy made his disgusted noise and loudly proclaimed, "This movie is HORRIBLE!" :) He ended up pushing through and enjoying it, for the record.


Have a great week and thanks for checking in!

Sammy got a haircut!

The following is further proof that I have the best husband in the world..

Early this morning, as I was preparing for a day with the little boys, Dan hugged me and said, "You are going to go take a nap and then work for a few hours and after that you and I will be having a lunch date." !!! What a perfect and totally unexpected surprise!

The skydiving plane was in for routine maintenance today, so Dan had a random day free! Weee! I accomplished tasks in the morning (a very good thing) and then Dan and I brought the boys to daycare for a few hours. We went out for lunch and after that we sat and stared at a peaceful lake for over an hour. It was awesome.

The weather was beautiful this evening, so we spent some time outside as a family. I got my camera out because I wanted to take pictures of Sammy's new haircut!

Elijah's hair was photo-worthy, too!

Elijah's second day of kindergarten seemed to go well. He provides us with very selective information, so we are assuming he is treating his peers and teachers properly. Please, God.

The first thing he has told me both days has been about "John," the little boy who talks too much and doesn't listen during circle time. I had the thought today that "John" could be Elijah's alter-ego. Only I, the mother of Elijah Daniel Porta, would have this thought. I am praying that John is real. :)

E is LOVING the bus and everything surrounding the topic of school. This boy thrives in the school setting. We are so happy for this!

Depending on the skydiving plane, Dan may or may not have another day at home with us tomorrow. That is both a great and a bad thing. Money vs. family time!

E had a great potty day, which we are very thankful for. We are hoping this continues for the next 40,000 days.

That's all I have tonight! Thanks for checking in, friends. Enjoy the rest of the handsome-boy pics...

Sammy's first haircut!

I can't believe what a big boy our Sammy is! We brought him in for his first official haircut today, and he did not blink an eye. We totally expected flailing and screaming (due to certain experiences with a certain other little boy in our house). He sat emotionless for the entire cut! Unbelievable. He is such a chill little guy, unless he wants food or cannot get a marker cap on the marker by himself.



All day Dan and I have been commenting on how different he looks. Our baby is growing up!



I thought this was super funny. In Target, he was putting his sticker on his eye, like his brother does when he has to wear his eye patch. :)



Tomorrow is Elijah's birthday celebration at our house. We are all excited about it! And Monday is his birthday. It is so much fun making birthdays special for my boys.

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.

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.

Hair

After looking at some of the photos I've posted recently, you must think that we never comb our child's hair.



And that would be a good assumption because we don't. That head of hair has a mind of its own. I could comb through it for five straight minutes and it would look the same as if I didn't comb it at all. So we have learned to let it express itself in whatever way it wishes.

Every once in a while I will see other parents whisper to each other as they look at Elijah. I always wonder if they are commenting on his crazy (awesome) hair, wondering why he isn't walking, or just gushing about how cute he is. Most likely they are gushing about his cuteness because that trumps everything, right?

The stitches came out today! Minus some dramatic tears, all went well. His incision looks great. We have to take him back in two weeks for a final incision check, and guess what? We can't bathe him until then! Oh well, this is really not a big deal, just a slight inconvenience. We will continue on with our sponge baths until then.

Rashy has left our little boy's body! Let's hope it is gone for good, never to return.

This is a short work week, yay! We have a few fun plans and a few other fun ideas for the upcoming weekend, so I'm getting excited. Almost two weeks post-surgery, I'm finally feeling like we can enjoy our summer!

My haircut.

It has been a long time since I have had a good haircut. Thank you, SARAH.

Look at my new big boy hair cut!

Snipped

We did it. We got Elijah's hair cut. Dan and I found a good compromise: his hair is now short enough that it doesn't get in his eyes, but long enough so that he still has some of the curls. He was not a happy man during the cut. As much as he's been poked and hurt lately, I can't blame him for being scared and upset.


The "before" pic. Could that face be any cuter?


The hair was definitely needing a trim (even I'll admit it)


I am NOT happy about this!




The keys helped, but they didn't stop the tears




This picture just makes me want to cry! What a sad little face.

Lots of random things as I take a quick lunch break

Answering a few of your questions and offering some additional tidbits..

Dan and I did meet skydiving. We had known each other from the dropzone for a while, but because of timing and other people, we didn't start dating for a year or two after meeting.

Dan has been to about four different doctors for his rash, he has taken steroids, antibiotics, and he has applied many creams. Every doctor seems to tell him something different. One thought it was contact dermatitis and another thought it was a reaction to detergent or shampoo. Who knows?!? At one point earlier in the week it was all over his arm, neck, face and ears. The rash isn't welcome in our house anymore!

We are going on a babyless vacation in July! We have to get our yearly Vegas fix. And we have to meet the Roller family! We will be there July 10-13, so please join us as we unleash some pent-up stress on poor Las Vegas. We already have a few friends who are coming along. Plane tickets are getting more and more expensive, so book quickly! Good thing we've been saving up for this.

I think we've come to an agreement about Elijah's hair. I told Dan we could get it SLIGHTLY TRIMMED if he was willing to find a nice place that would make Elijah feel comfortable. It does get in his eyes a lot, so I feel bad about that. We're not totally getting rid of the curls, though! Who cares if people think he looks like a girl. That just means he has a pretty face.

I was able to find a picture of a very young Dr. Moga on the internet and LOOK! He has long hair! (Does it make me kind of stalker-ish that I googled our surgeon?)



We had the pleasure of meeting this beautiful baby boy and his mama, Lea. He is such a precious little guy. And so strong! They are hoping to get Johnathan home from the hospital within the next week or so. Please keep them in your prayers. They are dealing with a few little setbacks after he had open heart surgery a few weeks ago. While we were there visiting, we saw our beloved DR. G roaming the 3rd floor halls! He did a double take and said, "Just visiting I hope?" We chatted for a bit and he asked how Elijah was doing and said he looked great.

Only good things to report (with the exception of Dan's eternal, growing rash)

A few things about today:

Elijah is 15 months old!
We got an outstanding report from Dr. Judy at his 15-mo. well visit.
The cutting of the hair poll is closed and the NO HAIR CUT vote won (more on this in another post).
It has been exactly 5 weeks since Elijah's surgery.
In one week we can finally pick E up underneath the armpits again. Thank God!
You will be able to see a pretty, full moon in the sky tonight.
Dan's rash has officially taken over his entire body.

Elijah's well visit went as good as it possibly could have gone (aside from all of the screaming and tears). He is in the 50th percentile for weight (24 lbs, 3 oz), the 30th percentile for height (30.5 in; sorry Elijah, looks like you got my short genes) and the 70th percentile for head circumference. We were given clearance to totally drop the nebulizer treatments. WOOHHHOoo! We are completely drug-free! His O2 sats were at 95%, which is excellent, heart rate was 125 bpm. His development aside from gross motor is right on track.

Gross motor is a whole different story, but we already knew this. The only thing he can do well is sit on his own. He can roll, but he doesn't do it much. He can't crawl, stand, pull himself up to a stand, get on all fours or get himself into a sit. He basically just sits in one spot and cries if he wants something or wants to move. These milestones will all come with some patience and hard work. We are starting physical therapy again next week, so that should really help. He lived the first 14 months of his life exhausted and not doing anything he didn't need to do. Now he's not exhausted anymore, but he doesn't understand that moving around is an option. We will get there. In the meantime, he can't run away from me as I kiss on that delicious chubby neck.

More on the Hair Poll later. Dan is upset because someone at the grocery store told him that we should enter our beautiful daughter in a beauty pageant because she would definitely win! But then Dr. Judy told us DO NOT CUT THOSE CURLS. So we are negotiating right now. I'll let you know the official compromise once we figure it out.

Curls and travel dialogue

Please see the poll to the right and vote on whether or not to get rid of these curls. I don't want to cut off Elijah's hair but Dan does. I told him that if the results from this poll weigh in favor of cutting them off, I will take Eli to get a haircut next weekend. If the results weigh in favor of not cutting his hair now, I will get it cut in two months. Dan says if we wait two months, he will grow out a mustache until the day of the haircut, I think as an attempt to lure me into changing my mind. Oh well, I guess he'll be the one with the sweaty upper lip in the middle of the summer! EVERYONE reading, please vote! We need a wide variety of people included (we can't have only my close friends voting, to be fair).


On a completely different note, I found some of the communication between parents and children in airplanes/airports this past weekend interesting enough to share here.

Sitting in the MSP airport, I overheard a mother tell her 12ish-year-old daughter to turn off her ipod because "once we get on the plane, you'll need to do it anyway."

The daughter ignored her mother and continued to listen to her ipod.

Mother: Fine! The plane is going to crash and EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE! All because of YOU! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!

I giggled because I thought, she has to be kidding, right? I turned around to see that based on the looks on both of their faces, she was not kidding. A few minutes later, just when our flight had started pre-boarding, which means there was still plenty of time before the coach class would begin boarding, the daughter said she was going to run to the bathroom quick.

Mother: You can't go to the bathroom NOW!

The daughter got up and went anyway. The mother yelled after her, "Fine! MISS THE FLIGHT! See if I care!"

Shortly after, I heard the father call their other daughter a moron. Nice.


Then on the airplane from Ft. Myers back to MSP, there was a baby about Elijah's age crying in the row behind us. The ride was pretty bumpy for a while and every time it got really bad, she would cry harder. I didn't have a problem with the crying. I have a lot of patience for that because I know how hard it is to fly with a baby. It was the mother who was annoying me.

She kept telling her baby to "STOP THAT!" Dan and I kept looking at each other like, Really? Does she think that's going to work? Then the loud SSHHHHHHH-ing started followed by more STOP THATs.


Good, so now we know what works! I have a few things to work on: I need to turn up the drama, I need to start calling Elijah degrading names and I need to yell at him to STOP THAT whenever he is upset. You can all thank me now for sharing this parenting wisdom!