Decorating Time

Decorating for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving was always my family's tradition when we were growing up. Seeing as I'm scheduled to have a baby next week, we decided this was definitely a good day for decorating. My feet have grown incredibly huge in the last few days, and I was so tired early in the day, so I decided I really needed a nap before I'd be up to decorating. I slept for a little while, and when I got up, most of the house was done. My wonderful husband had drug all the decorations out of the attic and set up almost everything. He left the tree because I really love decorating the tree every year. We put Clayton down for a nap and did the tree together. Clayton was so excited to see it completely decorated when he got up. He spent about five minutes showing me every colored ball on the tree. He also immediately found an ornament he received from GiGi last year that has Scooby driving a snow plow. Within a few minutes that ornament had to move higher up on the tree.



Tonight Ryan and I sat around by the light of the Christmas tree and several lit strands of garland, listening to Christmas music and enjoying this little time of peace before the new baby arrives. One week to go. Healthy is our only prayer.

Waiting for that third baby.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We hope everyone had a great holiday, and more importantly, we hope you had a lovely feast. We were so blessed host Thanksgiving at our house this year. Ryan's training schedule and the baby mandated that we stick close to home this year. Several of our classmates were in the same situation, so a group of us got together to celebrate. We had eight adults and two toddlers and tons of food.

The ladies got together last week, and we divided all the cooking among us. I made one dessert on Wednesday and threw together two casseroles Thursday morning, and that's all I had to do. It was great. The group came over early in the afternoon. The ladies got all the food together while the guys entertained the kiddos in the backyard. It was a gorgeous 65 degrees, and the kids had a blast. We ate at about 5:00. Clayton was a big turkey fan. He ate a little sweet potato casserole, a little mashed potatoes, and a ton of green beans, his favorite. After dinner the guys did most of the clean up, for which I am forever grateful. Then there were marble brownies, pie, and ice cream. Yum!

Cardiology Visit

We had Clayton's six month cardiology check up this morning. Getting vitals is always a challenge, and today was no exception. After that apparently traumatic experience, Clayton did great. He had an EKG, and he actually assisted the nurse in the placement of his stickers. Getting the stickers off is usually painful, but he did really well, and didn't even really complain until the last sticker or two. The cardiologist listened to him for a while and decided we could skip the echo today. That makes me a little nervous, but at the same time, it means he sounded really good, and there's no real need to check that tricuspid valve, which has been our main concern during this Glenn period.

We spent the majority of the time discussing Clayton's weight, or lack of weight. In the past month Clayton has been experiencing a lot of acid reflux, which has done nothing for his weight gain or appetite. Our pediatrician is currently in the process of getting us in with a GI doctor, and the cardiologist agreed it was needed. He said he would look forward to hearing any GI recommendations. Hopefully they will be able to find the cause of the reflux and help us with some weight gain. I'm getting so frustrated. Sometimes I actually find myself regretting not getting the g-tube placed when Clayton was an infant.

Other than that, Clayton's doing great. We talked a little about the new baby, and he said just to call him if we have any concerns after the baby is born. Then he said he'd see us back in six months and that we'd be in touch over the GI concerns.

Have I mentioned how much I love this cardiologist? We've met a lot of pediatric medical professionals in the last few years. You wouldn't believe how many don't make any effort to show they actually like kids. It takes a special person to be a doctor and have good bedside manner, but it takes an extra special doctor to have good bedside manner with a frightened two year old. This guy is always so friendly and compassionate. He really does a great job of distracting Clayton and making him feel a little more relaxed. Everytime I leave his office I'm so grateful for Ryan's assignment here, and for the string of people that led us to find this doctor.