Wild Goose Chases

On Friday I was very excited because Dave, Jack and I had plans to go to the fair! I enjoy the fair, and I knew Jack would love it! Dave isn't so much a fan of the fair, but he does enjoy doing fun things with us, and I had managed to convince him that the fair would be a fun thing to do! We started off the day with Dave getting up with Jack and letting me sleep in (score! I love it when he is home in the mornings... a rare treat!)! Unfortunately, Dave ended up having to go deal with some family issues, and we had to postpone our trip 'til Monday.

But Monday we had a playdate with Jack's friends and their mommies (my friends!), so we had to postpone our trip again. Besides, the fair ends up being closed on Mondays. No big deal, we'd go Tuesday (today) for sure!

Our plan today was to go to Jack's last swim class (sniff), and then leave from there. Dave hadn't gotten a chance to see Jack swim before, so it was great timing! He came along and got to see how much Jack has learned! And Jack did awesome at his last class, I was so proud of him :) He floated, swam under the water, and had a great time! When we left he told his teacher "Thank you for being my teacher!" since we weren't going to see her anymore.

We sing some fun songs in the class and, during this particular song, I, being incredibly buff, throw Gigantor up in the air 6 times. He is really heavy, and the water doesn't help that. But it's fun and we love it.

Floating is not his favorite part, but we count to 20 while he floats and he loves counting to 20!

Practicing jumping in. He holds his breath and I hold mine, even though he's the only one that goes under the water.

After swim class, we hopped in the car and drove the 30-40 minutes to the fairgrounds! I was excited to finally get to take Jack to the fair, and that Dave was with us, too! We exited the freeway, drove to the entrance, and...



...did you know that the fair is closed on Tuesdays, too? Yeah, we didn't either. I guess when I had Dave check to see what time the fair opens I should have also had him take a close look at what days it's open as well!

So we went to the Ruby's at South Coast Plaza for lunch (where we tipped the waiter extra, because Jack broke a bowl-oops- and he took care of it and brought us a new one before we could blink an eye!). While we were there we walked by the carousel three times, and each time we came near it Jack asked "I need to ride it, PLEASE!" He was such a good boy and didn't freak out when we walked right by it without stopping three times, so right before we left we made a special trip back to the carousel so that Jack could ride it. He had so much fun!

Nothing compared to the rides at the fair, but Jack had a great time. Because of Dave's work schedule and because I really have my heart set on him coming with us, our next chance to try to go to the fair is next Wednesday, so we'll try again then. We have until August 9th so hopefully it will work out!

And maybe we can go to IHOP, too! All week I've been having a craving for IHOP, and today Dave finally agreed that we could go there for dinner! Yay! So we got in the car and made our way to the IHOP in Hermosa...


...or, what used to be IHOP! Did you know that the Hermosa IHOP had closed down? Yeah, we didn't either. Instead of IHOP, what we found was a half-torn-down building! Bummer. Rather than drive all the way to the IHOP that we knew was still a fully functioning pancake house, we decided that Good Stuff would do, and so we traveled the hop-skip-and-a-jump (yes, that was very dorky of me to say. I'm regretting it) down to the pier. I was so excited, because I hadn't been to Good Stuff in a while, and I love that place! My dad and I used to eat breakfast there all the time when we'd get to the beach at the buttcrack of dawn to save our spots on the beach for the Volleyball tournaments, and it's been a while since we've done that. So we parked, walked down to the strand, and...


...did you know Good Stuff closes at 5? Yeah, we didn't either. No OC Fair, no IHOP, and no Good Stuff??? What a day.

So, as my hunger was now at the nuclear level, we ended up driving through at the Golden Heart-Attack (read: McDonald's... and don't tell my sister!) and heading home.

I suppose, as far as things go, we had a pretty good day. Not much worked out according to plan, but the three of us were together and there is no beating that! I love my boys :D

Wishing I Wasn't Posting Now

I was hoping and praying that I wouldn't have to make a post like this ever again, but once again I must ask you to pray for Stellan. He is not doing well at all, and as of right now he's been in STV for the last three days. He's popped out occasionally, but only to pop right back in. Stellan has touched so many hearts, and his needs prayers and healing. His is a case that is not by the books, as his type of SVT is unknown, and he doesn't respond to treatments the way he is "expected" to, or, the way doctors can usually predict their patients will respond. He's quite the difficult little case, but he is a fighter, and he's been fighting a long time.
My heart is breaking for MckMama and her family, and tears come to my eyes at just the thought of what they are going through. I can't imagine. I don't want to imagine. But I'm praying hard for a miracle. And that is what Stellan is. A miracle. There isn't any doubt about it.
The last few updates are scary. Their family is on their way to the hospital, and the doctors are trying to decide whether or not it's too late to send Stellan to Boston, where he recieved his surgery in April. Please be praying for wisdom for the doctors, for Stellan's family, and for Stellan himself. His heart needs healing, and fast. His little body has fought so hard, and he's so tired.

Mark Your Calendars...

... for some unknown date in February! I mean, if you want to mark an actual date, then you can mark February 22, 2010- since that's the day that Baby #2 is due- but we all know how predictable babies can be, right?

In case you haven't guessed it by now, we had our first prenatal appointment today! We dropped Jack Jack off at my mom's house and Dave and I headed over to the doctor's office. Our appointment was at 1:50, and I like to be early, so we got there at 1:25. As soon as we sat down, they called us in (pays to be early!) and the nurse took care of us so quickly that we saw the doctor at 1:40! I'm definitely going early from now on! Anyway, long story short, we have a healthy little baby in there! I'm 9 weeks pregnant today, and that makes Baby #2's EDD (estimated date of delivery) February 22, 2010!

*sidenote: have you tried to type 2010 yet? I keep typing 20010 because I say two-thousand-ten in my head... I need to start thinking twenty-ten! This will be an interesting adjustment in January!

So, without further ado, here is our baby's very first Baby Picture! Isn't he or she beautiful? (Okay, so I know not everyone is going to be able to 'see' the baby in these pictures unless I point out exactly what it is you're looking at -ie, head, feet, body, sac, hands...- but I promise, that's a baby, and it's beautiful!)

Never Fear, M&Ms Are Here!

You may remember from one of my previous posts that JackJack is absolutely terrified of haircuts. Seriously. He did perfectly fine at his first haircut, when he was 13 months old, but we've had to fight tooth and nail and literally hold him down in order to get any haircuts since then. I don't know what it is! I like to think, though, that he is just such a good boy that he knows that he is not allowed to touch scissors, and therefore was trying really hard to ensure that he didn't get in trouble for having the scissors so close to him? That could be it, right? No? Maybe he knows that scissors are sharp and he was just didn't trust us not to accidently, say, cut off an ear or something, and therefore fought as hard as he could not to even let them near his precious, beautiful little self, just in case. I mean, he's not afraid of the scissors themselves, but just the mention of the word "haircut" was enough to send him into hysterics!

After our last unsuccessful attempt at cutting his hair (by the way, I was able to cut those peyos later that week... and it was no easy feat!), I decided that it was just hair, and I was not going to fight him on it. If he wanted to look like a "long-haired hippy surfer-dude" (in his daddy's words), then that was just fine. I liked his curls, and even though they did get crazy at times, as long as I kept his hair combed they looked perfectly fine! Yeah, okay, sometimes I couldn't see his beautiful blue eyes, and he even started brushing his hair out of his own eyes, but really, it wasn't worth torturing the poor child, in my opinion. Besides, I liked his long hair! So, long hair it was.

That is, until Dave showed me a picture of American Idol Loser Runner-Up Adam Lambert, and told me that that is what he saw when he looked at Jack's hair. Dave was not in favor of Jack remaining a long-haired hippy surfer-dude, as I was. I told him that if it was that big of a deal to him, then he would have to take Jack to get his hair cut. It wasn't worth it to me. Besides, there was no way that Jack's gorgeous blonde locks in any way resembled Adam Lambert's black 'do. I mean, Jack's hair was just long, whereas Adam Lambert's hair was more of a male version of Kate Gosselin's reverse mullet!

And then, on my way to swim class one day, I saw a kid walking along the sidewalk and thought "Wow, that kid's hair looks dumb. He looked like one of those Jonas Brothers!" Then realization dawned. "Dang it! My kid looks like one of those Jonas Brothers!" I made the decision then and there that we needed to put The Plan (that my mother and I had cooked up) into action.

Ever since our last failed attempt, we've all tried to come up with a plan to get Jack to cooperate and comply with getting his hair cut. We wanted him to be excited to get his hair cut (but not so much that he would take it upon himself to cut his own hair!), and we certainly didn't want to torture him about it, or even really have to fight him on it! I knew that there had to be a way, and that positive reinforcement was the key to success! Finally, about a month before my "Jo Bros" revelation, my mom came up with The Plan! She told Jack that "what we will do is, we will sit you in your highchair at grandma's house (yes, she was referring to herself in the third person), and we'll take the scissors and go 'snip snip snip' (here she pretended that her fingers were scissors and she ran them through his hair), and then we'll give you an M&M! And then we'll go 'snip snip snip', and then we'll give you an M&M!"

Have I mentioned how much Jack adores M&Ms?

Jack started thinking about it, and while he still screamed in terror at the thought of the word 'haircut', he focused on the M&Ms part of it, and slowly it seemed that he was warming to the idea. Very slowly, though. As I said, my mom came up with this Plan a month before I actually decided that we needed to just bite the bullet and do it. A month should be enough time to get him used to The Plan, right? Well, no way to know unless we try, right? So, the day after I decided that it had to be done, Jack and I headed over to my mom's house and we sat him down in his high chair to begin the torture.

First, we showed him the huge bag of M&Ms for some incentive. We went over The Plan again (by this time he knew that haircut= M&Ms, but so far we had only talked about it... we had never substituted scissors-shaped-fingers for real scissors, or had the M&Ms right there in front of him when we were talking about it before!), and poured the M&Ms into a big bowl so that he could see them and pick them out in between snips.

The first snip was torture, and at this point I was pretty sure that Jack had little nerves in each and every hair on his head, and could feel each hair being cut! Why else would he be that upset?! We rewarded the first snip with an M&M, told him we were SO PROUD of him (he loves to know that mommy is proud of him!), and showed him the hair that had been cut. We made a BIG DEAL about it, trying to encourage him and support him in his terror. We let him have two M&Ms after that first snip.

He screamed again for the second snip, but when we showed him the hair that was cut from that snip, he sniffed and said "I'm so proud of you! Now which color M&M do I want?" Yay! He was warming up to this haircut idea! At that point the phone rang and he had a little bit of time to relax, calm down, hear how proud I was of him, and talk to me about The Plan as we looked at the M&Ms. From then on, he did great! I put the bowl of M&Ms on his tray, and he and grandma would take turns. First, grandma would take her turn taking a snip of his hair, and then Jack would take his turn picking out an M&M. He still wasn't completely cured, though. He leaned away and flinched every time mom brought the scissors near him, but he held still as she cut, and each time he heard the scissors slicing through some hair he'd gasp, remind us to tell him that we were proud of him, and then wonder aloud which color M&M he'd like. After he chose an M&M he'd politely remind my mom that it was her turn.

Hooray! He did it! I am so proud of him for letting us cut his hair! It seems that when things are a struggle for him, my heart swells all the more when he successfully overcomes that obstacle. It was the same with crawling and walking... it seemed like a much bigger feat for him than if he had crawled or walked early. I would have been incredibly proud of him had those things come easy to him, but since he had to struggle for them, it seemed that much more of an accomplishment! If he had sat quietly and just let us cut his hair without fussing, I'd have been extremely proud of him. But, knowing the terror that filled him and what a struggle it was for him to allow this, I am that much more proud of him for overcoming his fears and allowing us to prove to him that there was nothing to be afraid of.

Good job, Jack Jack! I am so proud of you!!!

A 'before' shot (pardon the flyaways... it was windy!)


I didn't take any pics while he was screaming because I was busy comforting him, but you can see he's not thrilled by haircuts (oh, and these are from my mom's camera so pardon the quality)


See how he cowers away from the scissors?


Checking himself out aftwards


After (it's a little windblown, but you get the idea!)

And now, he no longer looks like one of the Sprouse twins!

How To Stay Cool In The Summer Heat

Step One: Sit back, relax, and put your child to work filling up his own pool


Step Two: Stay right where you are, with your nice, cool beverage in hand. Make your child get himself something to drink!

Jack and Dylan

Continuing where I left off from my last post...
After lunch, Dylan asked Jack if he wanted to go see the boats and Jack said yes, so Nicolle and I walked with our boys over to the pier. They had a great time talking about the kayaks and boat and the ocean. They get a long so well :)

I'm pretty sure they're each doing their own version of "what does the whale do?" here. Dylan's is a splashing hand gesture and Jack's is a loud whale call.

Swings, Swimming, and Sworks Storks

We've had a few busy days over here! On Monday, Jack Jack and I stopped by my mom's work to drop some stuff off for one of my customers (yes, I still sell CTMH! Contact me for a catalog!), and while we were there we took some time to play on the playground! It was really fun for the both of us. My mom works at the school that I used to attend from Kindergarten through 8th grade. I also worked there for a few years in the Day Care, so I've spent many hours playing there and watching children playing there. But I don't think I've ever had quite as much fun as I did playing there with my own child! He had so much fun playing around and I had so much fun watching him! I even put him on the Big Boy swings all by himself for the first time, and he did great! He even pumped a little bit to keep the swing going!

On Tuesday Jack and I met Ang and Austin at swim class again and had the added bonus of having Susan there! Jack was thrilled to look up from the pool and see Auntie Susan! After swim class he got to play with her for a bit, as Ang and I had to shower really quickly so that we could meet up with some friends for lunch!

We were sooooo excited for lunch! Remember my post about my Storks? We had another opportunity to meet up with a Stork friend on Tuesday! Ang and Austin, Susan, and Jack and I headed over to Ruby's, where Nicolle and Dylan were meeting us, so that we could all have lunch together with a friend from Texas! Our friend Keisha was here on a work trip/family vacation, and I was soooo excited to finally be able to meet her!

Note: The last time Keisha was out here, I wasn't "allowed" to meet her because at the time, I looked like this, and Keisha hadn't yet been verified as a non-DOM (Dirty Old Man- the Stork joke is that Storks that haven't met any other storks in person may in fact be Dirty Old Men hiding behind their computers!). As I was about to pop with Jack, Dave wasn't comfortable with me putting myself in potential (but nonexistent!) danger. His other excuse was that he didn't want me that far away in case I went into labor!

Anyway, Nicolle and Ang had met Keisha before, but for Susan and me, this was our first time! I was expecting Keisha to be super nice, and she exceeded my expectations! Keisha brought her 15 month old daughter, Isabella, her husband, Michael, and her MIL, Martha, and we took over a huge spot in Ruby's! Many Stork Meetups have taken place all across the country, but this was the biggest Stork Meetup yet! We had 5 Storks, 4 Stork-kids, and 3 Stork-kids-in-utero, as Nicolle, Keisha and I are all expecting our second child.

Kids Say Jack Says The Darnedest Cutest Things

Just a few of Jack's funniest moments ;)

Jack (to waitress): I have some crayons, please?
Waitress: Okay, wait right here and I'll bring you some!
Jack: Okay, I be patient. You bring blue and yellow crayon!

Jack (hearing a siren): Ooooh listen!
Grandma: I hear it!
Me: Do you think that is a police car, a fire truck, or an ambulance?
Jack: I think it's a siren!

Jack (at swim class): Oh, the water is cold in my armpits!

Jack: I got Biiiig muscles! I so strong!
Me: Big muscles like momma!
Jack: Momma, daddy's muscles are REALLY big. I have big muscles like Daddy!

Jack (in Grammy's backyard garden): Where the tomato go? I don't see it! It all gone!
Me: I don't see it either! What do you think happened?
Jack: It all gone! Maybe Timmy eat it! (Timmy is Grammy's cat)

Jack (after I explained to him that the TV turned off because the power went out): Oh man, that's a bummer!

Me: Okay Jack Jack, your breakfast is ready!
Jack: Oh that's waffles! Oh they soooo beauuutiful!!!

Jack's Third Fourth

The Fourth of July is one of our (by our, I mean Dave's and mine) favorite holidays! Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible for a firefighter to get that day off of work, and therefore, we've only ever gotten to spend the Fourth together once in all the years we've known each other! Quite the bummer, huh? This year was no exception, and Jack and I were left to our own devices this weekend. Fortunately, though, we have great devices, as my sister invited us over to her house to go swimming!

Jack was so excited!


We played with Uncle Scott's RC Monster Truck while we waited for Auntie Mimi to get ready to go...


And then Jack, Grandma, Auntie Mimi and I went to the pool!


This was our first time swimming with Jack's swimmies on! He was afraid of them at first, but I tricked him into putting them on and he had so much fun swimming in the pool with them!


He even allowed Mimi to let him go and he swam all by himself!


I have so many pictures of him swimming in the pool with those swimmies on! He was just having so much fun!




Amy told Jack that his swimmies looked like big muscles!

After swimming, Jack and I went home to take a nap, and then we headed back out to meet up with some friends at a secret rendezvous point to watch fireworks!

Ang and Austin and Brian were there


Jack had a blast running around on the grass... there was so much space and we and our group were the only ones there!


We had to bundle up to stay warm while we waited for the fireworks to start

And once they started, Jack was all "Ooooooooooooooh"s! Literally. After each firework, he'd yell "Ooooooooooooh!" to the point where we were certain he'd have no voice the next day! Then Ang asked him what color the fireworks were, and instead of Ooooooohing he started yelling the colors of the fireworks after each one. It was hilarious.

He loved the fireworks so much that he wasn't ready for them to be over. He kept saying "Let's turn the fireworks back on!"

I'll leave you with a video (okay, it's more of an audio since it was so dark the camera couldn't pick anything up, but technically, it's a video) of Jack's Ooooooooohing!

Happy Birthday, America!

Water Babies

I've been meaning to sign Jack up for swim classes for a long time, but I never got around to actually picking up the phone and signing him up. I finally decided that if I plan on giving him swim classes for his birthday, then I couldn't put it off and I'd have to sign him up! So I talked to Ang and we decided to sign both of our boys up for a Mommy and Me swim class! Jack adores the water, and on the first day of class he was sooo excited when I told him that we were going to go swimming with Aunt Ang and Baby Austin!

I snapped one pic before we left, but I didn't want to take my nice camera to leave it unattended while we were in the pool, so the rest of the pics/videos are from either mine or Ang's P&S cameras...

The pre-swim pic

My mom came along to our second lesson to take pics and videos for us! Thanks mom!

Here are the four of us... Jack, Me, Ang and Austin

Video time! You'll have to pardon the terrible sound, though

And this is from this weekend... I had a scrapbooking retreat and Dave was so sweet to bring Jack to visit because I missed him sooooo much! I took a break from scrapbooking to play with my boy in the pool! Check out his 'dogpaddle'!

To see more pics and video from our swim class, head over to visit Ang at www.IHeartWombats.blogspot.com