Smooth Sailing

I can not even begin to describe how proud I am of Riley!  We had our second casting this morning with Dr H and Riley was such a brave trooper!!!  We had to go to his Berkeley office so I was pretty nervous about getting out there because I've never been there and I usually get lost, plus, being in a new environment always throws Riley off.  I took the day off to spend time with the kids so I had Jacob with me, Marc and I leave for Cancun in the morning and I wanted to get as much kiddo time in as possible.  Marc thought I was nuts for bringing both kids.  We got there smoothly, parking was an issue, he had a lot and plenty of it but the spaces are tight so I actually had to squeeze into the passenger side and climb across the seat and pull the car out to get the kids into their seats after the appointment.  We got called back right away and went straight to the casting room.  The casting guy was AWESOME!  He explained the saw that would take it off and I was just waiting for the meltdown but it never came!  She actually giggled and said it tickled and when a little boy came in to get his taken off she said, "It's ok, it just tickles."  Sure enough, he was giggling in no time. 

Dr H came in and smelled her foot, which was very dirty and gross, but got another giggle out of her and then let her stretch it for a bit before coming back to cast it.  He got a little more flexibility out of it this time and Riley sat on my lap and just let him cast away talking to him about the playground, her brother, going to Target to pick out a toy, etc.  Night and day from last week!  He asked how she did and I told him after the first day she was fine and she even said to me later in the week "I don't even know why I had a meltdown at Dr H, I can do everything with my cast on!"  Oy, this girl is too much.  He was cracking up and said that he told the office to call to check on her but he pretty much knew that Bev would be calling us as well but he wanted to make sure she was ok.  That's why I love their office so much, they really look out for an care for Riley, I couldn't ask for more in this situation.  She's been walking on her toes which he said was fine, he couldn't get enough dorsiflexion out of her foot last week and she would probably still be walking on it a bit in this cast but next cast we should see more normal walking.  Jacob even behaved himself and just sat and watched his brave sister!

I am so proud of my big, brave girl.  She was too, she said in the car "I sure am proud of how brave I was today!"  She also said, 2 more casts after this one and no more casts!  Love her!  Of course we went to Target and she got a Dora and then I let her pick lunch and she picked bagels and cream cheese!  After nap we're off to the park to enjoy the day together!

Blue is the color of the week for her!  No sparkles at this office so she'll have to get some next week she said! :)

More Park Play

Saturday Marc went to the Giant's game with our neighbors so I had the kiddos all to myself.  The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, so as Riley put it, it was a perfect day to fly a kite.  We packed up the stroller, made a stop at Peet's  for a coffee for Mommy and hit the park.  As I approached the park, I saw that the city had turned on the water park portion of the park.  Blasted!  Not only was it super chilly out but I have a kid in a cast.  I made a quick turn to the smaller playground area and quickly had to negotiate with Riley explaining the water was on and we couldn't get her cast wet.  She took it pretty well and kept saying "I don't know why they turned it on so early!"  It was cute, truth is, they always turn it on Memorial Day Weekend, I was just hoping that because it was under construction for the past few weeks and it was chilly out that they would have postponed it.  My wonderful friend Elisabeth was there with her friend Owen and we saw each other Facebook posts so we met up and Riley and Owen played together for a long time.  Jacob was the pesky little brother, and Elisabeth and I got to catch up.  We stayed at the park nearly 2 hours!!!  It was super fun times, and of course we flew our kite which is always a hit!

He pointed at the swing so I thought I'd give it another shot!

Nope, still doesn't like the swing

He doesn't even like Riley on the swings

He sure did like spinning though!

Girl in cast climbs the ladder, nothing holds this girl back!

Riley taking Jacob's lead going head first down the slides

How Jacob does the slides!  My tank!

Kite flying time with Owen!

Poor Jacob trying to keep up with his big sister and her friends, he wants to be a big boy so bad!

Sweet friends!

Friends hug!

So sweet and innocent!

Let's Go Fly A Kite...

Whenever we walk past our park somebody is flying a kite of some sort and Riley has been asking for one so I found a princess one on Amazon.  Saturday it was nice and windy and Marc had a conference call at 4:00 so I wanted to get the kids out of the house so they wouldn't disrupt him.  I took them down to the park to fly the kite.  Our first location was not ideal.  I parked us in front of the tennis courts, turns out they block the wind so I didn't have much luck getting the kite to fly, but picture me running across the expansive field with a princess kite and both of my kids cracking up at me trying to figure out why the kite wouldn't fly.  We then moved over a bit to the end of the tennis courts where there was an amazing cross breeze, low and behold, a flying kite and 2 very ecstatic kids!!!  We ended with some catch/throw as Riley calls it with the balls we brought down and then a snack watching the ducks.  A pretty awesome Saturday afternoon in Northern California!!!

Notice how big this field is?  And this is only a portion of it, imagine me running across it with a kite trying to get it to fly, the things you do for your kids!

17 Months

Sunday marked Jacob's 17 month birthday, can't believe my boy is almost 1 1/2!  We spent the day celebrating his buddy Alex's 2nd birthday!  I really can't believe that Alex is 2, time surely flies these days.

Jacob continues to be a big huge love, he loves to hug and kiss and he will just randomly stop what he is doing and come give you hugs and kisses.  He's going through a bit of a separation thing with me which makes day care drop offs a bit harder, especially now that his best buds Sophia and Alex are 2 and are having breakfast with the preschoolers, Jacob desperately wants to be a big boy!  Jacob is also definitely more reserved than Riley, it takes him some time to warm up in social situations whereas Riley just runs off and joins the party, he sticks close for a while and wants to be held, when he gets more comfortable, he'll get down but still wants to hold your hand and then when he's almost there he'll let go but expect you to stick close. 

He's still a tank, when I brought him to the Dr he weighed in at 24lbs 11oz, which was the 63rd percentile.  Both the Dr and nurse commented on what a big boy he was.  He's hit a major growth spurt, I just washed and transitioned all of his 18 months clothes about a month ago and they are already snug.  A few days ago I had to try 3 pairs of pants on him before I could find a pair that fit him!

He's talking more and has said Elmo, Ouch, Hot, bubbles, and bowl as new words in the past month.  He has all but one of his teeth in (minus his 2 year molars of course), Riley still had 0 teeth at this age!  Crazy!

Now we just need to get him to give up his "ba" (pacifier)!

Almost time for a new chair for this guy!!!

Pretty girl trying to help me get him to sit in his chair for his picture!

Legos!

We are big Lego fans in our house, except when you step on one, then I don't think anyone likes Legos.  So Saturday while Jacob was napping and I was working, Riley and Marc built a Lego house.  I'm actually pretty impressed with their handy work!

One Happy Casted Girl

Riley tried very hard to stay home with me on Tuesday from school.  She knew I was working at home and tried everything in her power to convince me that she needed to stay home with me.  I on the other hand, I thought Tuesday was a great day for her to show off her cast at school since I was working at home and I was close if I was needed.  She was super emotional going to school.  She was worried that her friends wouldn't like her cast, I was heartbroken, 4 is way to young to be worrying about what you're friends were thinking!  I told her I thought the opposite, that they were all going to go home and tell their moms and dads about her cool green cast (with sparkles).  I think she was also worried about getting around, she had gotten pretty comfortable at home moving around but I think the floors at day care worried her, she was worried she would slip and fall.  I sent her with some tube socks to put over it when she went outside, a marker for signing, and an extra blanket to wrap around it for nap so that it wouldn't bonk her other leg.  We said a very tearful goodbye, I was truly heartbroken for her, and her bestie is on vacation! :(  I stopped at the directors office on the way out and gave her a heads up that Riley was super emotional and she said she would make a big party about signing her cast.   Oh and if you didn't believe me about Riley's meltdown of epic proportion, 2 people from Dr H's office called Tuesday afternoon to check in on her.  Beverly of course called first from the Walnut Creek office and then someone from his Berkeley office (where he is on Tuesdays) called to make sure she was doing ok!  I don't know if I should be embarrassed or touched that they checked in on her! 

Marc left work early and actually offered to go get the kids with me, I think we were both super eager to see how she did at school.  Her teachers said she had a great day, their only concern was that she was running ALL OVER the playground and was that ok!  Phew!!!  Then we went over to get Jacob and his teachers asked me what happened to her foot so I gave my 30 second clubfoot elevator speech.  They smiled and said "That's what Riley told us but we didn't know if she made it up because she told us it was a crooked foot and not clubfoot!"  Haha!  I'm so proud of her for telling people about her clubfoot, I really didn't know if she understood or not!  So she had a great first cast day and I think she is settling in, she did try to negotiate out of the next 3 casts and when I told her she had to get them she tried to negotiate their duration, she wants the next one to last 4 days, the one after that 3 days and the one after that 2 days.  Oy that girl!

She got signatures from all of her teachers and she's so proud of it!!! 

So we're all adjusting to her being back in casts, it's definitely bringing back a flood of memories from her infancy.  Both happy and sad but we're managing!  I had to dust off my 30 second clubfoot elevator speech which I have mixed emotions but we're settling back into having clubfoot a part of our lives again. 

A Real Man

Can ride his truck (pantless!) and hold a purse at the same time!

Not What We Expected

You know when you leave somewhere in a total state of shock because it didn't go the way you expected it to go?  Well that's how it went with Dr H today.  I moved up Riley's appointment from July to this week because I just was not happy with her foot, it was to the point where when I looked at it I got a pit in my stomach and it started to churn.  He did x-rays and then we looked at them, her left foot definitely had some misalignment but he still said it was mild.  Here's her right foot, we didn't get a picture of her left foot. 

In a normal foot the 2 leg bones would be parallel to each other, this is her right foot so there is more overlap, in her left foot (casted) the bones barely overlap.

So he decided to re-cast her, none of us saw it coming.  Riley did not take the news well.  A teenage girl even came in and showed Riley her cast and showed her that it didn't hurt, which was so super sweet, there are still good kids out there.  I couldn't say anything to make it better for Riley, I even told her if I could put the cast on my foot I would have, and I would have, anything to take the pain away from her.  Part of her issue was she missed her nap, the other part was fear that it would hurt.  Either way, I felt completely helpless because I couldn't make her feel better.  Of course Beverly is the absolute best and she took Riley to the back room, got her some water and an apricot and sat her on her lap for her cast.  What would we do without her?  When we were talking to Dr H he referred to Riley as "one of their own," and on the way home after Marc and I could digest everything we felt really honored that they truly do treat Riley like she's their own.  So we got her casted, he did a short cast to minimize the trauma to her.  He's just hoping to get some additional flexibility out of her left foot.  We go back weekly for 4 weeks to have it re-casted and re-manipulated, kind of a mini-version of her original treatment.  She seems to be doing better now, nothing a mani, ice cream and the Care Bear she's been hoping for couldn't fix.  Riley never ceases to amaze me, she's the strongest, bravest, toughest girl I know. 

I'm feeling very melancholy today, I think I'm just emotionally drained, I held it together for Riley but I feel myself crashing.  I am trying not to get my hopes set on this being the answer to our problems, I know deep down that this is probably just a patch to get us through the summer with a winter surgery but I am trying to be optimistic.

Fort

Marc was traveling again this week so we filled our time with random stuff.  Thursday we went to the Farmer's Market and then while I was putting dinner together I built the kids their first fort.  I loved making forts with my brother when we were kids and thought it would be fun for them too.  Jacob liked climbing over it (no surprise there from the tank) but Riley loved crawling through it.  She even watched her DVD and ate a snack in there after Jacob went to bed while I did some work (have I mentioned how over work I am these days - though I did get runner up for Q1 Employee of the Quarter, lost to the Wal-Mart team of course, so at least my hard work is appreciated but I am SO ready for a vacation!).

What I Learned

Well, I didn't blog about Mother's Day because quite honestly, it wasn't the best.  The kids woke up early as usual, Riley came into our room crying because she wanted to do to school and go to reading and it was Sunday and school was closed so she couldn't.  Jacob started the day off fine but by mid-morning he had between 99-100 fever and was drooling so we wrote it off as teething.  We went for a walk for coffee, came home and went to lunch.  Mid-lunch Jacob melted down (not surprising since it was just about nap time) and wouldn't eat (surprising), by the time we got him home is temperature was 102, ok, not teething.  I put him down for a nap since he wanted to sleep but he woke up less than an hour later (during that time I worked) and he was laying in bed awake, completely out of it, he was making eye contact but not engaging like he usually does.  I took his temperature and it was 103.9!!!  Mother's Day was officially over, we gave him some Motrin and put him in the bath tub to try to cool him off and I made a frantic call to the on-call nurse.  I absolutely hate fevers and didn't want to have another seizure on our hands.  Fortunately he slept well that night, though I was up every couple of hours to check his temperature and I was able to get him an 8AM appointment with the Dr.  He wasn't eating or drinking well so there was clearly something wrong and I was worried it was an ear infection since he was grabbing the side of his face.

Monday I stayed home with him and attempted to work.  I got him to the Dr at 8AM and he was still out of it though he did have a little more of his spunk back.  No ear infection but poor little dude had his first sore throat, which explains the drooling.  He was also cutting a tooth but the Dr said his throat was bright red, not strep though because there was no pus.  So she told me to just give him Motrin/Tylenol combo every 3 hours which would also keep his fever down.  So the rest of the day we had our big adventure together, this is what I learned:

• He knows way more than we think he knows (he got mad at me an swatted at me and I asked him if he needed to go to time out and he walked over and sat himself in time out, what!?!  This kid may be easier to discipline than his sister after all!)
• He's still a sweet, cuddly boy, who spent his whole time touching me, as long as he was touching me, he was happy.  
• He learned to climb onto the couch and would lean up against me and rub my arm and play with my hair, sweet, sweet boy, I hope he remains a Momma's boy always!
• He gives great hugs, and kisses and is not shy with them and does not hold back, he would spontaneously lean over and hug me
• He loves bags and putting stuff in them
• He loves his sister to death (I told him we needed to go get her from school and he went upstairs and stood in front of her door thinking she had been there the whole time)
• That I miss him incredibly (and his sister) when I am at work!

I'm not sure what this face was but it was funny enough to post

Jacob and his man purse, he loves to bring it every where and it's stuffed with wipes (clean), goldfish and pacifiers, you know, all of the important stuff!

My handsome pants!

I also taught Jacob to say "ah" so that I could check his throat to see if it was still red.

Mommy Kiddo Fun Time

Marc is gone at least a night a week with his new job so I've been trying to get the kids out of the house in the evening to break things up.  We've been heading to the Farmer's Market down the street and having breakfast for dinner which the kids absolutely love!  We've also been having a ton of fun just playing and hanging out!

Jacob loves his school picture so much that he takes it down, walks around  the house saying "Aye" to it and kissing it.

Braved It Alone

Well, I braved my first 5 year old birthday party with 2 kids alone.  The original plan was for me to take Riley to the party and leave Jacob with Marc but upon Marc's return from his trip this week he informed me that he had a conference call at 4PM on Saturday, the party was 2-4, so he couldn't watch Jacob.  (Have I mentioned how much his new job sucks!?!)  So I woke both kids up from their naps and brought them to the party.  I tried to keep Jacob in his stroller as long as possible but it just didn't last the whole party, so after the bouncy house room, I turned him free.  It wasn't all the bad, Riley was very mature about it and she was OK when I had to take Jacob for a diaper change.  Plus my friend Angel was there so she and her husband were able to keep an eye out for Riley to make sure she was OK while I tended to Jacob's stinky pants.  It went so smoothly that I even took them to the outlet mall for some returns, to let Riley pick out some new "short pants" (you'll see below that she desperately needs new shorts, her cheeks hang out the back of her shorts which says a lot since she doesn't have any cheeks!).  We successfully did our returns, picked out some shorts, and then went to the Puma store where they were having a huge sale and got the kids some new matching shoes, Riley was so excited to have the same shoes as her brother!

And I have more pictures of Jacob than Riley because I got mostly the back of her head or her blurring by as she ran around with her friends!

Holy Cow, She's Reading!!!

Riley picked up her phonics workbooks on Saturday night and just started reading the words, granted they are site words but Marc and I were so proud!  At first I thought she was doing it from memory but then when she got to fan she corrected one of her mistakes so I knew for sure she has been learning.

And not only are we proud of her ability to read but we are more proud of the feedback that her phonics teacher has been giving her.  On all of our progress reports she states that not only is she learning at a rapid pace but more than anything she has a great attitude about it and even when some of the stuff is super tricky she never gives up and is always positive about it! 

So proud of our big girl!!!

Birthday Party Circuit

We're starting the birthday party circuit for Jacob now.  Sunday we had a birthday party for Sophia at Super Franks, Sophia is Riley friend Trevor's little sister so we all went.  It was a ton of fun, most of Riley's best buddies were there, Joey, James, Trevor and Jimmy.  They were all in the infant room together at Kindercare and now they are 4 year olds, crazy!!!!  Jacob's friends from his class were there too and the room the party was in was great, it's upstairs, totally closed off and perfect for letting 1-2 year olds run free, safely and without worry.  The little ones had a great time as did the big ones.  Jacob went off and either played (or pinched) his buddies or tried to follow Riley and her friends around.  Meanwhile, Marc and I got to sit on a lounge chair drinking our coffee and catching up with our friends all while supervising our kids.

Hot stuff sitting next to sister!

My little man

Trouble makers, they've known each other since the infant room!

Jacob gives birthday parties a thumbs up!

What!?! No more cupcakes!?!

Riley wrote her first card all by herself!  I just had to tell her how to spell "Sophia," the rest she did all on her own!  So proud of her and her eagerness to learn.  And she now signs everything "Riley Z." because there are 2 other Riley's in her class so she's now know as Riley Z.

Sigh

This weekend I had a little girls day out at the Livermore Wine and Art Festival with my friend Jen and my friend Angel.  Our kids all go to school together and this was Jen's first outting since having little Max.  It was a ton of fun and a lot more wine than art, which was probably good because we probably would have woken up the next day and said "what was I thinking!?!"  It was a ton of fun, these ladies are awesome, so down to earth, supportive and a ton of fun.  We're so lucky to have landed at Kindercare and met an awesome group of friends for both Riley and us!  It was super hot on Saturday in Livermore, we're talking 90s (on a side note I am so not ready for the heat yet, I need me some more 70 degree days!) so we did a bit of tasting and then snuck into a swanky restaurant for some AC and tapas for lunch before hitting the streets for more tastings.  It was good times all around.

After, we all went back to Jen and Pat's house for a BBQ.  And here is where my big sigh comes in, my baby boy was more interested in what the big kids were doing for the first time than he was with me.  We've hung out a lot with the Puccinelli's and Johnson's at the Puccinelli's house and always the big kids (Riley, Bella, and James) play at the front of the house and Jacob sticks close to me.  But not Saturday night, Saturday night he followed his sister and her friends around and did a pretty good job keeping up with them despite the 3 year age difference.  And Riley had no issues with her baby brother following her around and getting involved with her friends.  It hit me that my little man is becoming more and more interested in socializing and growing up so fast!  He even sat at the little picnic table and ate with them, he looked so grown up, especially when he was stealing food off of everyone's plate.

Le sigh, my little man is growing so fast!

Link to Samoas Cupcake Recipe

Since Autumn requested, here's the link to the Samoas Cupcake recipe:

http://kathleensconfections.blogspot.com/2011/01/samoa-cupcakes.html

I had issues with the caramel on her recipe (think big burned block of sugar in my pan), so I used this one instead, which I've used before for Salted Caramel Rice Krispie Treats and is super delicious:

http://halfbuzzedhostess.com/2012/04/12/salted-caramel-rice-krispie-treats/

Happy Belated Birthday...

to my husband!  I'm about a week and a half behind on this post so pretend it's April 26 and we're celebrating Marc's birthday!  It was a Friday so we both went about our normal routine.  We both went to work but Marc came home mid-afternoon, which is completely NOT normal in his new job, we hardly see him at all.  I get off of work at noon on Fridays now, got to love summer hours so I got to work on making him some awesome cupcakes. Normally, I would make him some sort of chocolate/peanut butter cupcake but since we haven't tested peanut butter on Jacob yet (I'm terrified of an allergic reaction) I went to my faithful Pinterest for some ideas on something decadently delicious but also nut free because Jacob doesn't like to pass up a cupcake.  I found these:

Those are Samoas cupcakes, Samoas just happen to be Marc's favorite Girl Scout cookie so I decided to give them a try.  Homemade cupcakes, homemade caramel, homemade caramel butter cream, homemade chocolate ganache, and toasted coconut, it was pure decadence and SO delicious.  Of course we had pizza for dinner followed by these deliciousness.  Marc had two and told me that they were the best cupcakes that I've ever made and if I sold them in a store that he would pay $4 for one, which from Marc is a HUGE compliment!  I gave Jacob half of one and turned around for 2 seconds when I turned back around it was gone except for a little handful of cake in his little fist.  Needless to say, these will be a repeat for us!

All and all I think Marc had a good birthday!