did i do this to him?

I thought I had given the baby measles.

I had the doctor split up the MMR vaccine for KC. So instead of getting all three vaccines in one stick, I'm drawing out the pain and the copays over time.

Honestly, this little baby is not really where he should be with his verbal skills. I'm only mildly worried since he does seem to understand many things, can hear, point out body parts, do a little sign language and afterall he is my THIRD.

But until we are out of the autism woods, I didn't want to take any chances.

He had the measles part of his immunization series a few weeks ago. This week he spikes a temperature for a few days and then Friday his fever went away and he had small pink dots all over his face and truck. By the evening, his dots were red and multiplying.

Last night he really just didn't want to be asleep which is WHOLE other story.

It could be roseola....measles....chicken pox....I just want it to go away

Our new dog Leo

where's my baby?

I uncovered this little essay....I wrote it 9 months ago when my baby wasn't even a toddler yet.
This was clearly a mother that had not yet discovered the joys of Zoloft

.....................................................................................................................................
I walked by the computer today and a screen saver picture caught my eye. In the endless loop of snapshots that have been saved on the computer, I saw the face of a baby I didn't know anymore.
My baby is now nine months old. He is pulling up and rolling and inchworm crawling his way around the house despite my attempts to keep him corralled.
The baby in the picture was smiling and lounging in a bouncy chair. The baby couldn't sit up on his own. He needed me to move him every which way, to hold him upright so the burps could come straight up, to lay him on his back and keep the SIDS monsters away. Now he wriggles from room to room, scoops Cheerios with ease and crams them into his mouth.
I know it is too soon to start the lament of where has my baby gone? After all he still is very much a baby. Last night I rocked him slowly in my arms and wept. I felt so sorry for this sweet baby. He has me, the tired older mother of THREE boys. Nowadays I try to plan my summer days with enough activities to keep the two older boys from fighting. I feed them, wipe them, clean their messes; I survive.
The first boy got the young, newer fresher me. I read to him for hours, bathed him daily, changed his clothes at the first evidence of a drip, planned baby play dates, and enrolled him in Gymboree. What was I thinking?
I never left my first son K except for maybe when I had a doctor's appointment. My husband kept him in the car and waited for me until I could return. God forbid I would have to take him in there with me because of the dreadful viruses and diseases that doctor's offices breed. K didn't have a babysitter until he was nearly three. And that was only because I had to attend my mother's funeral.
Child number three knows all the fine ladies in the church's nursery very well. He smiles, cooes and holds his arms up to complete strangers. He's already stayed on his own with his godmother, a neighbor lady and a 15-year old babysitter with ease.
They say you are more relaxed the more children you have. Relaxed is a nice word for exhausted. Exhausted is what I really am.
I know you are not supposed to compare your children, so here goes.... My number two son Q started walking at the age KC is right now. I was shocked to watch our little Q race across the floor at nine-months, way before I was ready. I was thrilled and panicked at the sight. No, no, no....this is too soon. Please stop what you are doing I told him. He's been moving ever since.
My sweet baby hasn't appeared to be in any hurry to get anywhere until this week. He started doing this odd yoga-like plank position, where he would do a push up with a stick straight body on his tippy toes. For a while that was all he did, just a little mini-push up and then back to his belly to play or eat the carpet fibers.
Now he has expanded this push up to a push up /propel motion that flops him forward on his belly each time but somehow manages to get him around with some speed. He inchworms himself towards me with a big open gummy smile.
He has started eating quite a bit of table food lately. What a change this is from the first baby too. When I took my oldest for his nine-month check up, the doctor told me I could start giving him yogurt, cheese, Cheerios and other table food. I practically pinned the doctor against the wall until he swore to me that he had never heard of a baby choking on a Cheerio.
Flash forward six years, this child by sheer survival of the fittest eats fists full of food. I put him in his high chair throw some cheerios or those terrific new fangled food puffs they've invented since my last child in his tray and away he goes. I prepare food for the rest of the troops while KC studies and concentrates on the process at hand. I keep fixing things and putting them in front of him and he eagerly swoops in and devours things.
He is down to nursing just twice a day now, which is such a bittersweet milestone for me. He doesn't need me for everything in his life now. The breastfeeding is one more thing the baby is taking physically and emotionally on his own and pulling away from Mama. Somehow that thrills and saddens me.

-end-

clothes

There is an outfit that my mom bought K when he was a baby, red velvet vest, black and white plaid pants with matching necktie. I had his picture taken in it when he was 18 months old. (So cute. I love babies at 18 months...still babyish, yet like a little person learning words and tricks at lightening speed.)
When Q hit the year and a half mark. I marched him to the Target photo studio for his turn.
And now KC has hit the 1.5 year milestone...so it is his turn.

Today was frantic trying to get ready for the occasion. I thought since the three of them are in the same space, I'd try to get them all in a picture together.

It took me about 1.5 hours to get ready for their photo shoot at Target which included laundry....b/c the shirts were not clean....ironing....which I NEVER do. The ironing board doesn't really open since I don't use it much and I had a hard time finding the iron. Snacks....to futilely ward off the grouchies.
The photographer took about 10 minutes to take 10 shots.

decisions

Here is a question for you....
Imagine you are driving happily along with your four-year-old and new dog in the car....
Suddenly you see two small children and what looks to their baby sitter and whack....your auto gets hit by an egg.
Then somewhere else along your trip. The dog throws up all over the back seat. Twice.
You pull in the driveway and have exactly 6 minutes before you have to head out to work. You can only clean up one thing.....which do you choose....the egg or the vomit?
It is interesting to me what makes people different. You see, me, I rushed to clean up the puke. My husband...thinks the egg must immediately come off the paint job.
strange....what makes people operate.

I am still in awe of our new dog officially known as “Leo Sammy.” You can call him “Leo.”
He has started to come out of his shell a bit. Today after his morning trip outside, he started to romp around and play with a ball.
He is an extremely gentle soul.
He is about a year old. The county put him at about 1.5 years old. The branch office said he’s 10 months old.

Tomorrow the boys have soccer games, then I'll go to work the evening shift.

messy house, clean dog

I am amazed at the stuff available for dogs out there. Now I know why the pet industry is a 38.5 billion dollar business.
Since I adopted through the humane society, I was able to get the dog a free grooming. If I had to pay for it myself, it would have cost $65. Yikes. I think I'm going to get out the same clippers I use on the boys' hair.
Then again, I recently learned about anal glands and was more than grossed out. Getting someone else to squeeze those special glands is worth the 65 bucks.
As of today 30 hours into this new experience, I am convinced that God sent us the perfect dog. He is housebroken. I know someone spent a lot of time with him at some point. He sits almost automatically at attention. He is crate trained, very calm, gentle, sweet.....DOESN'T CHEW.
Tonight while the boys had soccer practice, we worked on his heel and he mastered it within minutes. Before he would just kind of wander.
I'm waiting for the ball to drop though as he gets more comfortable.
So far his encounters with Baka the cat have gone pretty well. The cat came up last night and sniffed him all over while he snored away next to me.
The cat got completely stressed out by the two foster dogs we had. They really wanted to get ahold of him.
We've got two names going right now....Leo.... and Sammy.... As you can expect two brothers can't agree on a thing. This may be the first dog I've heard of with a middle name.

We've got dog

We've got our own dog!!!!

He's a black mutt of some sort. Extremely sweet. So far so good, granted we've only had him about six hours. We got him through the humane society....if his picture is still there they call him "James" I'll post pictures when I get them.

The debate on the name goes on....

If you could

If you could put your dream into a field, what would it look like?

For one little boy with a trip to grampa's house it looks something like this....

K rounded the corner of his grandpa's house and saw this 36 year-old bus in all it's faded glory.
He and his brother got to sit in it, blow the horn, turn on all the blinkers and lights. We, as the passengers, had to get on and off at the told times.
Oh what a dream.

whew

Having two young dogs and a toddler is a bit like having triplets that are all about 18 months old.

It was great fostering Sunny and Share. They truly are great dogs, excellent with kids, but they did get into stuff, oh boy.

The deal was we would keep them until spring break, which would help save the rescue group boarding costs and get them adopted sooner with a foster report.

So I will continue to look for our perfect dog (read that singular.) But know that we have lots of time and lots of dogs to chose from.

I'll be posting pictures from our spring break adventures soon.