Thursday, August 27, 2009

slapping sick in the face

...ahem...ummmm...hmmm....i mean, sick slapping graham and me in the face. hard.

last week, graham had some pretty serious dirty diapers and i just chalked it up to him drinking whole milk and eating new stuff. and then thursday morning when i walked in to wake him up, what i saw made me scream, "OH. MY....CHAD!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!!!!" I normally don't say that. it's usually 'oh my goodness' or 'oh my word'. but i was FREAKING OUT. Graham had thrown up ALL in his crib. EVERYWHERE. big HUGE chunks. E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E. and my screaming and hollering scared the poor thing to death. apparently it had happened in the middle of the night because by the time we woke him, it was all dried and crusty. i couldn't believe graham never cried. but he acted like he was fine. and i never thought anything more of it because the night before he did eat quite a bit of food. and so I just figured he had a super full belly. so we got everything in the washer and cleaned up and proceeded with our day.

then i got a phone call around 2pm that graham had a 101.7 fever and i needed to go and get him. i decided to take him to the dr. because with the diarrhea, vomiting and fever, i didn't want to take any chances. and dr. said "stomach virus." and there wasn't anything we could do but put him on a strict diet of ONLY clear fluids for a 24 hrs and then gradually work up to solids and milk again. but NO MILK for 5 to 7 days. so graham and i went home and laid on the couch. he was so pitiful. usually he is all over the place and wants to play. not today. all he wanted to do was lay on my chest. so he did. and i loved on him and held him and took total advantage of him wanting mommy. he hardly ever lets me hold him like that so i was taking every single bit of it in. and then around 5pm, it hit me. and it hit me like a tornado!! I pretty much stayed on the toilet all night with a trash can in front of me as well (sorry TMI). I was so weak and couldn't even move. it was absolutely horrible. i seriously thought i was going to die. i tried drinking lots of water, gatorade and pedialyte but as soon as I was ingesting it, i was throwing it up just as quick. i could not get hydrated at all. so finally around midnight, chad called his mom to stay with graham while he took me to the er. i hate going to the dr and certainly didn't want to go to the er but i couldn't take it anymore. i was so weak that I couldn't even open my eyes or keep my head up. i knew it was time to go. we waited for about an hour before we finally got in and they hooked me up to an IV (THANK YOU GOD!!! it was my savior!!) that administered fluids and they also put some phenegran and pain meds in there as well. it made me so thirsty so i drank a ton of water and then passed out for 2 hours. they finally let me go around 3am. i wish i could have stayed. being in the er hooked up to the iv was the best that i felt.

when we got home from the er, i pretty much stayed in bed until monday morning. i wasn't vomiting anymore but still had diarrhea and was still so weak. i didn't even get on the computer and get on Facebook or read any blogs...i've got to be super sick to not get on the computer. ha! i'm so thankful that we had Chad's mom to stay with me and to help with graham Friday. My mom came from texarkana friday afternoon and stayed with us until chad got off of work Saturday evening.

thankfully, graham's fever went down and he was so much better. and thankfully, it's now thursday and i feel 100% better.

that is something i hope none of us ever have to go through again. i wouldn't even wish that on my worst enemy...if i had one.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

First Haircut

i finally gave in and decided to take graham to get his first professional haircut. yesterday, chad and i took him to pigtails and crewcuts in the pleasant ridge town center. we were amazed at how well graham behaved. shelly cut his hair and she couldn't believe it either. especially with this being his first time. shelly also introduced graham to suckers. i believe that held the key to his awesome behavior. he is definitely a sucker for suckers. no doubt about it.

WARNING: LOTS OF PICTURES


















i was amazed at how still graham was being while shelly was razoring the back of his neck. it's like he knew to be extremely still and look straight ahead.
TA DA!! new haircut!!

now fashioned into a cool lil mohawk
"please mommy. that's enough. i'm seeing spots."


one cool little kid


Monday, August 17, 2009

End of Summer Picnic

last friday was the end of the summer picnic at graham's school. lil man was sooooo extremely tired. at home he has a nap around 9am and then another around 2pm. well, at school, naps are only after lunch. honestly, i don't know how they deal with him every day getting only one nap. but they say he is great. guess he is just too busy and too occupied with all of the other kids. cause here at the house, when he is tired, you better put that boy in bed or you will end up with the worst migraine you have ever encountered. and if you've never had a migraine before, you better believe you will have one after you deal with mr. cranky pants.

so when i got to his school around 10am, i could just tell from his body language that this may not end up on a good note. he kept throwing himself down on the ground like he wanted to sleep. when i would try to pick him up and hold him, he would throw himself straight back. and that is a bad sign. bad BAD sign. when he started doing that, i actually thought about running out of there as fast as I could and not looking back. lol.

but much to my surprise, he actually did pretty good. well, besides being the only child trying to slap plates and food off of the table. all of the other babies sat so nice in their chairs, picking each morsal of food gently off of the plate and putting it into their mouth. what was graham doing?? slapping his hands and arms all over the table, trying to make a huge mess. I wish I would have gotten a picture or a video of it. but i didn't. why? because i had his plate in my arms while hand feeding him. and when i didn't have his plate in my hands, i was holding his plate to the table along with the others plates. and then also giving him his juice box while trying to help with the others juice boxes and then cleaning up the juice that he would squeeze all over himself because he thought that was fun. he wore me out. seriously. wore. me. out. i had to go to work afterwards but I seriously thought about calling in and going home to take a nap. exhausted. beyond belief.

but amid all of the chaos, i found out that graham knows how to drink from a straw. child drank two juice boxes. from a straw. no problemo. you go graham.


they had white t-shirts on all of the babies so they wouldn't make a mess on their clothes. i like.





the calm before the storm




i apologize for the quality of the photos. i only had my small casio. and i also apologize for the rambling. i'm exhausted and my face hurts. tomorrow I will be going to the dentist for the 3rd time in 8 days. went last monday for a temporary crown. was hurting after all numbness was gone . went back friday for them to adjust. told me i could chew on that side. later friday, chewed gum on that side and a pain so sharp that nearly made my head explode. pain never subsided. left side of face throbbing. going to bed now. with loads of tylenol pm.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

First Steps

When I picked Graham up from school Wednesday afternoon, his teacher was washing his hands in the sink and as she finished she walked him down the steps and I said, "Hey Graham!!" like I always do and this gets him soooo excited so she let go of his hands and he took two steps towards me. We were all soooo excited!!! but lil man hasn't done it since. he has figured out that he gets to wherever he wants to go a lot faster if he just crawls. I also think that he gets tripped up over his big size 6 feet. but chad and I have been working with him a lot so hopefully pretty soon he will feel confident enough to just take off by himself. he's teasing us, i think.


our lil beaver


PLEASE HELP!!!!
Graham is eating through his crib!! I'm pretty sure he is going to bail himself outta there pretty soon at the rate he's chewing.

Monday, August 10, 2009

just a few...

...short updates so I won't forget.

Graham is officially drinking whole milk as of last week. His last bottle of formula mixed in with whole milk was on July 29th. He is doing GREAT on whole milk and I cannot even express how happy I am that we are FINISHED with formula!! YAY!!! He is also not eating baby food anymore. it's all big boy food for him. sometimes I'll slide in a jar or two of baby food just to get it out of the cupboard but he really doesn't want it. he's very independant so he would rather feed it to himself. We are still working on getting him to drink his milk from a sippy cup. he is so funny about his sippy cup though. he loves drinking his juice/water out of it but when he realizes that mommy has slipped him his milk in it, he throws it down. i seriously don't get it. guess he just associates his milk with his bottle and nothing else. silly boy.

he is standing up by himself a lot better these days. He is still having to pull up on something in order to stand up but then he will let go and stand for a while. He hasn't taken any steps yet but he will walk with us just holding one hand.

He is saying "uh oh" all of the time. he dropped his sippy cup the other day and said "uh oh". Chad and I about died. It was hilarious.

that's all that I have for ya for now. i think. i'm sure i will remember something while i am drugged up on the dentist's chair this afternoon.


Friday, August 7, 2009

Florida 2009

We started our vacation by traveling to Texarkana last Friday to stay the night with Mimi and Poppi so we could all leave for Florida together. Mimi cooked the best fried catfish that we have EVER had. Oh.my.word. i ate wayyyyy too much and didn't regret it one bit. I hadn't had FRIED catfish in soooo long. oh, it just melted in my mouth. graham was a fan too. we played outside in their yard for a while as we waited on the catfish. i rode around in the woods on the golf cart looking for the bobcats that have made their home back there...no luck. unfortunately, I didn't find them.


one of graham's favorite places to be is riding on his daddy's shoulder. he laughs the entire time. it's so cute to watch. and he just rests his arm on chad's head.




graham at 5am Saturday morning. he is such a morning baby. love it




"Mommy, are we there yet??





12 hours later, we finally made it to our condo in Destin. It was so much more fabulous in person











at 1am, some stupid drunkards decided to pull the fire alarm so everyone had to evacuate. The alarm was soooo loud and graham didn't even BUDGE. we hated to wake him but we had to get out of there.







man, i love these two guys!!


Sunday, we decided to get back in the car and travel to Irvington, Alabama (close to Mobile which was 2 hours away from Destin) to see my mom's sister, my sister Judy and the rest of the family. We wanted to just go ahead and do the traveling on Sunday to get it over with. I hated putting graham back in his carseat to travel some more but he's such a trooper. we had a great time! We sat around and visited and ate some good ol Vietnamese cuisine. Chad got out in the backyard with the boys and taught them how to throw a football. The lil boys loved it!

Jennifer, Steve (my sister's fiancee), Graham, Judy (my sister), Eric, Wee, and Ten. Can you tell which child is only 1/8 Vietnamese????





Graham and Chan - my cousin, Lam's, wife and Jennifer's mother



Graham and Ten (i know i am probably spelling his name wrong but I'm just spelling it how you say it)









Jennifer and Ten

My mom and my aunt Nuong



Graham and my cousin Lam...he adored graham and didn't want to put him down. Lam and his wife, Chan, have a daughter, Jennifer who is just absolutely gorgeous! The three boys belong to my cousin Khanh and his wife. We didn't get to see Khanh and his wife. They were in West Palm Beach where they live.


Poppi, Chad and Steve on the ferry ride from Mobile to Gulf Shores. We went to Steve's house for a while.




Steve's dock



Killer the black cat

Steve's house


this house is for sale for 7 million. anyone want to go in with us to buy it???



Graham and Poppi




The mullet my sister caught.



she was fishing with this net...it was pretty neat but difficult to maneuver if you ask me. you have to have technique.


so chad decided to try it...and did really well! caught nine fish in an hour. that's the kind of fishing i'm talking about.















Graham and his Aunt Judy










isn't that a GORGEOUS sunset??




The AJ's pirate ship that was shooting blanks outside of our condo...this is the view from our balcony.







Monday morning, Chad and I hit the beach by ourselves around 830am and stayed out there til 11am. Around noon, Judy and Steve came from Gulf Shores and brought us lunch. Boiled Shrimp and Crawfish...my kind of lunch. Then we all headed to the beach.


Graham's first time on the beach. he didn't mind the sand...but the waves in the ocean freaked him out...he wasn't so much a fan.
















Yes, I am wearing a swimdress. not because I have stretch marks because thankfully i didn't get any but I have always loved them. and I wanted to hide my fat thighs. I was doing everyone on the beach a favor by not having to look at the imprints that the waffle iron left when it smacked me on the backside a couple hundred times.
and can you believe we are in the ocean?!?! the water is so clear!
this is why I have always loved swimdresses:











this picture makes me laugh so hard! I caught Graham mid fall.



My sister, mom and me at dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse. the best prime rib I have EVER had.



Tuesday was mine and Chad's day to do whatever we wanted to do. So, since we were so sunburned from spending all day Monday on the beach, we decided to check out the outlets. Unfortunately, we didn't have either cameras so we didn't get any pictures. But we got graham some fall clothes and got a few things for me and Chad. Then we ate some crab legs at Gilligan's. We got back to the condo around 5pm and Poppi and Chad went fishing and me, mom and Graham hit the beach and then the pool.






if you can see that black mass in the middle, that's a sting ray that we watched from our balcony. We also had the pleasure of watching so many dophins playing in front of us too. amazing!








Wednesday, we hung out at the beach again and then had plans to get ready and then go out to the sand dunes to take our family picture. When I got in the shower it was sunny and gorgeous...and then I stepped out of the shower to this knarly storm. The winds were so strong that it nearly knocked me off of my feet.







and then an hour later it was sunny and gorgeous again. But it started raining pretty hard AGAIN an hour later so we decided to just take some pictures on the balcony. I tried to get Chad and Graham changed into the outfits that we had planned but neither one of them were having it.





















After our balcony pictures, Chad, Graham and myself headed to The Crab Trap.












Graham enjoyed eating his tomatos, cucumbers, lettuce, fish and fries. the crab he wasn't thrilled about eating. he threw it back at me.


Graham loves sharing his food. he is such a little sweetie!


Thursday morning sunrise.

Graham saying bye to Mimi before we hit the road to Little Rock. We decided not to go back to Texarkana and just go straight to LR from Destin.


We had such a fabulous time and can't wait to go back next year!! But next year we will definitely stay a few days longer. There was so much to do and not enough time...and it will definitely be a lot easier when Graham can walk. Carrying a ton of stuff to the beach and back with baby on hip is certainly NOT easy. But it was all worth it.