Ready, Set, GO!

Every year my employer has an Easter Egg Hunt for all of the children of employees. This used to be a much smaller event than it was this year, but seeing as the company is up to almost 600 employees, it was an enormous group of kids this year. They split up all of the children by age groups and set them loose on the grounds of our company. For the different age groups, there are different levels of difficulty for the "hunt".

Gabe's group for example (0-2 year olds), had a flat patch of grass which was completely littered with eggs. You could not take a single step without tripping over at least one egg. Gabe was not sure what to do at first, but he understood very quickly. By the middle of the hunt, he was cutting off smaller children to get to the eggs. We filled up his basket, then my jacket pockets, and finally his hat before he finally resigned himself to the fact that all of the eggs were gone.

Caleb was so excited about the hunt that I thought he may just pass out on our way there. The Easter Egg Hunt did not begin until 11:00 and by about 7:45 that morning Caleb was asking when we were going to leave. I had to laugh at our conversation on the way in that day. It went something like this...

Caleb: "Mom, you know what?"

Me: "No, what honey?"

Caleb: "I am going to get a bunch of eggs today!"

Me: "How many do you think you are going to get?"

Caleb: "I am going to get about a BILLION!"

Well, he didn't quite get a billion, but he did do quite well himself. Nothing like his brother, but that did not surprise me at all.

The boys are so much different in personality that it never ceases to amaze me. I know that my brother and I were very different, but I would imagine that would be the case between a boy and a girl. These two brothers could not be more like night and day. For example, when we took Caleb to the Easter Egg Hunt 2 years ago (when he was about 1 1/2 years old), the Easter Bunny must have had huge fangs and claws that I could not see. He was absolutely terrified of the bunny. This year (at age 3 1/2), there is not much difference. Granted, he is not screaming at the sight of the Easter Bunny now, but he is still not the biggest fan. Caleb is my shy guy though anyway. Gabe on the other hand, he is a social wonder. I don't think he has ever met a stranger. He went right up to the Easter Bunny and wanted to be picked up.

Pumpkin Patch Party

This past Sunday, my husband and I took our boys to my friend Kristi's (Life with Aveline) parents farm. Not only do they have a HUGE pumpkin patch which you are taken to via horse drawn wagons, but there is also a corn maze, petting zoo, straw maze (for the young children) and a small country store.

The boys had a great time in the straw maze. Caleb was trying to figure out what the point of it was at first (I think).
Gabe however, thought it was wonderful to run around and act like he owned the maze.

Of course, the petting zoo was a hit as well. Both of the boys seemed to favor the pygmy goats. Caleb also liked the donkey, but it was just not as fun as the little pot-bellied pygmy goats that were just his size.

Gabe was excited to just run around and yell at the animals. Of course, Gabe is excited as long as he can run around and yell at anything. He is a month out from his surgery to get tubes in his ears and his volume has not toned down at all. At this point, I think I am out of luck. Oh well, at least he had fun!
I am not really sure what the animals thought of his visit however. Most of the animals tried to avoid Gabe at all costs.


Once we were able to pry the boys away from the petting zoo, we took some time to visit with Kristi and her newest little miracle, Scarlett. She was just adorable! We were also able to visit with other friends of mine and their children. Laura (from cheerios and chickens) was there with her twins that are edging on 2 years old. Also there was Christina
(A Mommy Story) and her husband and daughter Cordelia as well as another college friend Chris and her son, Emerson. Needless to say, we were outnumbered by those under 4 years of age.

We waited our turn for the horse-drawn wagon that would then take us out into the middle of the pumpkin patch. Caleb was so excited about "riding the horses" that he could barely stand it. He has really begun to surprise me recently. Caleb has always been the shy one who would cling to us for all he was worth in a new situation. In the pumpkin patch, he took the lead. Not only did he pick out a pumpkin for himself, but one for Gabe as well. Gabe was not so excited to pick pumpkins. He was more concerned with playing with the few weeds that were in the field. Then when he got tired of playing with those, he would change focus and simply go tearing across the pumpkin patch. Well, at least as fast as a 18 month old can run in a field of landmines (also known as pumpkins).

I almost forgot about Gabe's favorite pasttime while we were in the pumpkin patch. He was going up to every one (whether it was ours or not) and tried to clean all dirt off of the pumpkins. This struck me as very ironic that he was taking the initiative to clean in the field. On any given day in our living room, it appears as though a hurricane just went through. This is always what we affectionately term "Hurricane Gabe."

Anyway, the boys had a great time that day. I can definately say that this is an outing that we will have to make an annual event. Hopefully with all of our friends there again.

Where's the water for this shower??

On Saturday, Caleb and I went to a bridal shower for Tim's cousin. It was definately an interesting event. I am not sure if he understands even now why there was no water involved in this shower. Either way...he had fun!

Even though my brother-in-law and his family only live ~45 minutes away, we don't get to see them as often as we would like. At this shower though, my sister-in-law and I were both helping to host, so the kids got to play together most of the day. Caleb loves playing with all of his cousins, but his favorite is his cousin Hailey. He is 3 and she is almost 5, but you could never tell the age difference from how well they play together.

Of course, being kids at a shower, they saw only one good thing about it. PRESENTS!!! It is very hard to explain to 3 and 4 year olds that while there are lots of presents around, none of the presents are for them. I think they understood finally, but the wrapping paper was still calling to them. Needless to say, whether Kirsten (the bride-to-be) wanted it or not, she had two little (and very persistent) little helpers.

Round 2 = Success!!

Well, today was round 2 for Gabe's surgery to get his tubes in his ears. We made it over to the hospital in Wooster just before 6:30 in the morning and we were done and on our way home by about 8:45 this morning. The procedure itself was only about 10 minutes long once they got him sedated. Gabe did great though. There were no problems at all! Not that I thought there would be. I am just glad it is over. Now we can get on to working more on his language development.

Wait a minute. Is it too late to change my mind about this? Gabe is a very loud child as it is and now I have made sure that he can hear even better. Maybe I should have weighed out the pros and the cons first. Now really, before you jump on my case, I would always do what is best for my children...no matter what. I guess I was just hoping that with having the tubes in and the persistent fluid drained, he would maybe knock the volume down a few (dozen) decibels. After Gabe came home and took a good nap today, I have already seen that this is not the case. He was playing just as if nothing happened this morning and yelling just as much as ever. I suppose I should take this as a good sign that all went well. There were no complications during the procedure, no current infection, he woke up from anesthesia wonderfully and this afternoon was just like normal.

Don't get me wrong. It is not like this surgery and preparation went of just as planned. On Friday, both my husband and I were on the phone multiple times trying to get everything cleared through anesthesia. Tim (my husband) called and told me about the call that he had gotten from the hospital and I was livid. We were reliving the same issues all over again. At least the current medical pesonnel were willing to research the issues that they were concerned about, rather than just making a snap decision based on the smallest bits and pieces of information. Of course, Tim tried to deal with the situation on his own at first (since he works much of the time from home). The only problem with that is that he does not ask the same questions that I would. I knew that if I did not take over in this, I would not be satisfied with what gets passed to me second hand from Tim. At the end of all of the phone calls, I spoke to a representative in anesthesiology who said that she had reviewed Gabe's chart information that they had recieved from his neurologist and she cleared him for the surgery. You can ask my co-workers about my attitude before I knew that on Friday. I was ready to take my own person over to perform the sedation if I had to, but they were going to do the surgery today if it killed me. Luckily, it did not have to come to that!

The only bad part about all of this is the timing. Had the initial anesthesiologist not been such a pansy, this could have been taken care of several weeks ago. I believe that everything happens for a reason, even if I cannot ever explain what that reason might be. Maybe we were supposed to go to this neighboring city who had a bigger hospital, maybe we were to have this other doctor, and maybe it is another reason altogether that I have not thought of yet. Whatever the reason, we did what we needed to for the best interest of Gabe and all is perfect.

Medical Frustration

I have begun to get very disheartened by the medical industry these days. Not only have I had a not-so-good consultation with an endocrinologist in the last couple months, but yesterday I had to deal with a coward. Gabe was supposed to have a very routine surgical procedure done yesterday (getting tubes put in his ears) and we ended up being turned away. This of course, was only after I left Caleb with my parents, got myself up at about 5:15 and woke Gabe up at 6:10 so that we could head in to the hospital. I was not allowed to give him anything to eat or drink all morning so you can guess how well that went over. In case you don't know, my son likes his food. A lot! He is about 16 1/2 months old and weighed in at 30 pounds yesterday.

Anyway, I digress. We had already checked in to the hospital and had the preliminary vital statistics recorded by the nurse. After that, we waited...and waited...and waited. Once someone else did come in (after about 45 minutes of trying to keep Gabe entertained and happy) it was the anesthesiologist. He and I talked for only a few moments and I told him about a small part of Gabe's medical history. Within minutes, he returned to our room and said that he was not comfortable doing the procedure. Gabe had some very minor seizures immediately after he was born (they subsided when he was about 1-2 days old) and because of this, the anesthesiologist did not want to take the chance of putting him under, even for such a routine procedure. Keep in mind, the pediatrician, ENT doctor and pediatric neurologist who also knew what was going on, had no concerns what-so-ever. I was not even sure that I was going to say anything about it, and now I wish that I hadn't. Gabe's neurologist recommended that we say something mainly because if heaven forbid something did happen (as far as a seizure), no one would totally freak out. Once the ENT did come in to the hospital and made it in to our room, he was not a happy camper. He thought that it was crazy that we were being denied this simple procedure. He said that he had never considered it as a problem at all. Unfortunately, if the anesthesiologist says no, then surgery is a no-go. I called our ENT this morning and from what I heard through his assistant, he is still not happy about how things went. Not that he had any control over it. He has recommended another doctor in Wooster that he knows who can hopefully get things done quickly. We'll see!