Henry was tired but happy after our run today.  He worked hard!

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Liana got a special surprise after swim class - she got to beep the horn and sit on the fire truck.

You know Steve Jobs and Apple may have taken over our house (we have iPhone, iPadand iPod) and the world when Liana asked me the other day if she could listen to music on my "i...Thing"

Opening Day

Henry and I caught a little of the Sox home opener while the Nugget took a nap.

On the move

Henry Boy, aka McNugget has been making some new strides ... in that he is starting to stride. He gets himself in a full plank position and up until today has only been able to move in reverse. Today as I was bouncing a tennis ball in front of him while he was on his belly he began to laugh and laugh and he made a couple of moves forward - his first legitimate bona fide crawl! It was more like he was doing the worm (on brick in front of the fireplace - a piece of cardboard would have made it more of a money move) but it was for real. No photos of it yet but stay tuned for Planking Henry.

As of today he has also mastered raising his hands in the air when we say "touchdown!" and "mamamamama" is distinctly heard a couple times throughout the day. The H-Bomb laughs and laughs at ANYTHING his big sister does regardless of how naughty or how potentially dangerous and harmful to him. Is he not the cutest little bugger you have ever seen??

Henry Boy

Written on 3/29:

Henry gets a bad rap because he is having trouble sleeping … let’s be honest – little kids are meant to torment us and if any of us parents believe that true honest to goodness sleep is possible until the kids are 10 or 11 years old then I think we are fooling ourselves. Liana sleeps through the night but it doesn’t mean she isn’t up super early and ready to go full throttle.
Henry is a good baby and he is doing a great job sitting up on his own, reaching for toys and laughing at anything and everything his sister does. She can sit on top of him and ride him like cowgirl and he doesn’t care – he just laughs. His hair is so cute and fuzzy and he has such a great smile. Liana makes him smile for sure but mama is his first love and he always wants to know where she is and what she is doing. If she puts him down or goes too far from sight he will let out a high pitched girly squeal to express his dissatisfaction.
He has 9 teeth (got his first ones at 4 months and hasn’t stopped) and we are certain this is adding to the discomfort at night and preventing him from sleeping.
Henry Boy will stop and look right at you and calm down if he is upset if you sign him the ABC’s – it is like magic but I’m sure the spell will only last for so long. Even though he seems to abhor baby food and rice cereal he was close to 23 lbs at 7 months – in the 90+ %ile for both weight and length. He doesn’t like to eat from spoons – he would prefer you feed him food from your fingers which makes things challenging. Favorites at this stage of his life are mushed avocadoes (again, not from gerber or beechnut – we have to mash them ourselvers) and he seems to enjoy mushed peas, too. Like any baby he loves puffs and baby cheese puffs. Lately he has been on a yogurt kick but his favorite is mama’s milk … did I mention the 9 teeth??

F#%@ing Henry

Written on 3/29 -

So, it's early March and Henry has been a bit of a bugger when it comes to naps and sleeping at night. So much so that he has illuminated daddy’s less than patient side. There have been times when I am watching both kids and he is napping and I am just getting settled into something with Liana and he will wake up … too early and untimely. I would say “I think I have said” but I would only be kidding myself so I will admit that under my breath but audibly I have said “f*##ing Henry”. Well, apparently that has not been lost on the Nugget because a couple of weeks ago when she, mama and I were in the kitchen having lunch little Henry woke up and we all heard him stirring on the monitor. To my chagrin, Liana declared “f*#%ing Henry” – mama looked at me and we held it together enough so that it wasn’t encouraged but we needed to confirm what she said … yup, the mother of all the bad words … just like in “The Christmas Story”, she didn’t say FUDGE … it was the F--- word.
So, of course we told her that she shouldn’t say that …. and of course, she has said it again every once in a while in the same context – Henry wakes up from a nap, she decides to call him out on it. The other day mama was out, Henry was napping and the Nugget and I were having lunch. Now I had just put him down and he was making a few stirring cries but after 3 or 4 minutes he fell asleep. Liana declared: “Dada, I think Henry went to sleep”. I said, “I think you’re right”. She said, “you don’t have to say f*#$ing Henry!”
So, I told her that was not a nice word and she said “maybe I should say ‘Henry is driving you bonkers’” (one of mommies favorites) and I agreed that she could say that instead. So, not my proudest moment, of course, but if I am being honest and authentic I need to hang out the dirty laundry here too … sorry mom and dad 

Special teeth

Written on 3/29 - Our dental nightmare didn't end after Liana had her gum stitched closed. We found out she has cavities in her two front teeth among others. We have had a couple of consults and we will be taking her for surgery at Franciscan Children’s tomorrow. She will be put under for the surgery and the main reason is we are trying to preserve her 2 front teeth. There is enough decay behind them that it may affect the nerve in the tooth – we won’t know until she is under and the dentist can do a complete examination. We are hoping and praying she keeps those teeth – we don’t want her speech to be affected, we don’t want her to be ridiculed by mean little kids and we won’t be able to bear the guilt if she goes without them for the next 5 years because of something we could have prevented.

UPDATE as of 4.15 - the surgery on 3/30 went well and The Nugget has her pretty smile in tact and she now has a special tooth. Yup, a silver crown on the top right - second to the back as well as strip crowns on the two front teeth (you wouldn't know it unless I told you). Gotta say she was the best patient ever and (they called her "personality plus") she made us so proud to be her parents. She seems to be okay and her post-op check up went fine. The only negative thing from the surgery that she recalls is blowing into the mask (so she could get the gas in her lungs) - they told her she needed to try really hard to "blow up the balloon" - a purple balloon like thing attached to the mask. It seemed fun at first until she got a real taste of the gas. Later that night she told me she didn't want to blow up that balloon anymore ...

Utah - Get me Two - TAKE 3

Written on 3/29:

February - We had a great time in UTAH! Liana got to see her buddy Katelin and she got to go skiing again. She was in the harness and improved every day. Since Liana is the crazy nut we have all come to know and love there was no way she was staying on the Magic Carpet – essentially the learning area that brings you to the top of a small slope via the equivalent of an outdoor conveyor belt. After a few runs on that she said “I want to go on the chair lift”. Now, granted, she didn’t even know what a chair lift was until Katelin talked about it and pointed it out.
So, we rolled the dice and skied over to the Viking chair and when we got on the lift you would have thought it was Christmas Day all over again. She giggled and laughed uncontrollably and mama and I thought it was the funniest thing. We rode that lift several times and then went inside for lunch.
The Nugget skied Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. She also got in some killer tubing which was equally exciting!
Her buddy Katelin had just come off of 6 lessons at Deer Valley and was unencumbered by a harness – she was making turns and making “pizza” and could stop on a dime – money well spent. Liana will have some catching up to do next year. But, now that she has her own skis and helmet we can get to the snow early in the year and prepare for our annual visit to Park City.
Henry – well, he just did his thing and hung out for the most part. He did not sleep well and he ended up in our bed every night so we could get some shuteye. Too many teeth, a change in altitude and a change in time zone – not the best recipe for a happy baby. He did great during the day – figures! He was peppered with new nicknames and the Allely’s were sticking with Very Heavy Henry (due to the monstrous 20+ lbs at 6 months). We still like “Hankles” and “McNugget”.


for video of the Nugget riding the lift:
http://youtu.be/_C1L5K-txIQ

Out of the Blogosphere ...

So there is too much to catch up on – it has been so long since I have blogged abouth anything ...I wrote a whole bunch on posts on March 29th to try and catch up ... I am listing them all as separate posts starting with the blizzard on 2/1. We had a lot of snow this winter … so much so that there were some delayed openings at Hasbro and on 2/1 we were officially closed due to the snow storm that hit the area hard. I had prepared to work from home and get some work done – Liana had other plans. She and I were downstairs while mama was upstairs with Henry Boy. Liana was singing a song and spun around in her socks on the hardwood floors… she does not really do spins gracefully and to her credit she puts everything into them – so much so that the momentum of the spin results in a 540 instead of a 360 and she usually loses balance and falls down. Well, this time she hit what I thought was her forehead on the end table by the couch. She started crying so I knew it hurt – usually she brushes these dingers right off. I saw that her head seemed okay and asked her where it hurt – she pointed to her mouth and I could see the blood flowing … mama heard the crying and heard me reacting when usually I am pretty calm so she came running down. We started checking teeth and it looked like everything was in tact but had to be sure. Upon further analysis we could see the bone in her gum line above the teeth – not a pretty site.

So, did I mention it was a blizzard? We couldn’t get through to the pediatrician because the phone lines were out and the answering service wasn’t picking up. The irony is that she was supposed to see the dentist that day but they canceled the appointment the night before because of the impending storm. Short story longer, mama called the dentist and left a message with the answering service while I went out to snowblow the feet of snow at the end of the driveway so we could get out and head to the hospital. The dentist called us back as we were gassing up and we took a picture of the Nugget’s mouth on the cell phone and txted it to him. He made an analysis and then called ahead to an oral surgeon who happened to be the place he sends his patients and they were actually open on this day. After a slow commute on the snowy roads we arrived and the Nugget was a champ. She hopped up on the dentist’s chair, opened wide for the exam, sat still for X-rays and was generally a good patient. They needed to pull the gum flap back down which required 4 or 5 stitches. I laid on the table with the Nugget on top of me … she had some happy gas but was awake for the novacaine needle and she cried like crazy as the doctor did his work. Although she doesn’t know it, I shed some tears too… it is hard seeing your child hurting, plain and simple. Mama had Henry in the waiting room and oh, by the way – he was a champ. He didn’t make a peep – just a really messy pooh … but he is good at that. Liana turned over onto my belly when it was all done – red face and scared and all she wanted was to be hugged. We had some Mcdonald’s on the way home and that made her day… we don’t think she remembers being under the gas and the horrible experience of being stitched up… thankfully.

PS the pics are all current - even though I am recapping old events I am putting up recent pics :-)