Visit to DC & Meeting Gavin

We had the opportunity to visit Jodi, Paul, and Gavin in DC from October 18-21.

The flight in was one of the worst flights we had ever been on. Take-off was delayed by a couple hours and when we finally got close to DC we had to circle for almost an hour. We ran low on gas before we could land and were redirected to Raleigh, NC. We took off again for DC and were about to land when the pilot pulled out and decided to try again. When all was said and done, we had arrived at the airport at 3pm CT and finally arrived at Jodi and Paul's around 1am ET.

The funniest part of the whole flight was when Jesper woke up (he had fallen asleep on the way to DC but was woken up by our landing in Raleigh) and was having trouble getting comfortable again. Suddenly he sat up and yelled in the perfectly quiet plane, "All done! All done!" He had had enough, along with the rest of the passengers. Thankfully we only had about 15 minutes of the flight left to go.

Feeding ducks

Jesper and Jodi at the Lincoln Memorial

Josh and Debi in front of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial

Sisters

Jodi and Paul

 

Family Photo at the Lincoln Memorial

At the Lincoln Memorial

Vietnam War Memorial

We visited the monuments that we hadn't been able to see the first time around (Lincoln, Vietnam, Korean, Martin Luther King Jr.) and went out to eat at a fun mussels restaurant. However, the biggest highlight of the trip was getting to meet Jodi and Paul's beautiful little boy, Gavin. What a sweetie! He is just so cute. I had forgotten, however, how often little babies need to eat, sleep, and be changed. :)

Gavin and Jesper

Reading books with Jesper and Gavin

September 2012

Jesper transitioned into the Toddler room in early September. It was one of the harder room changes because he is required to go with the room's schedule rather than his own. They sleep on cots during naptime instead of in cribs and sit at little chairs at the table for lunch. In the mornings, I drop him off now at the large muscle room (basically a small gym) and the three toddler classrooms are all in there together. It's definitely noisier and more chaotic than the infant classrooms.

Josh and Jesper playing golf in the basement

At first, Jesper was exhausted at the end of the day and seemed to need a little more downtime and longer naps on the weekends, but he has adjusted well. I think it actually took Josh and I longer to adapt to the new daily forms and expectations and match them at home (he needs to eat with plates and spoons/forks and use an open cup).

Playing with Sabi

I also had some changes at work because I transitioned teams in September. It had been a rough summer with one of my main accounts, so I was happy to have new clients and a new team.

Josh and I celebrated our 4th anniversary on September 20. We didn't go out to eat because we didn't have a babysitter, but we made a nice dinner and had a bottle of wine. Love you, babe!

Gourmet Group September 2012

 

Hilton Head - August 2012

(Totally playing catch-up with these posts, sorry)

We visited Hilton Head, SC with the Carlson family and nearly everyone was able to make it (we missed you, Brett). We flew to Atlanta on Friday, August 24 and drove to Hilton Head the next day. Kai and Ashley and Brian and Nissa drove from IA and WI to join us there on Saturday. We rented a townhome within walking distance of the beach for a week.



Josh with Walker and Jesper

Brian and Nissa reading the same book

Paul and Josh

Walker and the iPad

Grace, Nissa, Brian

Kai and Ashley

Paul and Gail

Josh and Debi

 It was a fun, relaxing vacation. We spent some time at the beach, took Jesper to the playground, went swimming in the pool, took a couple walks around the area, visited a lighthouse and Savannah, and hung out with the family in the evenings. Josh and I even got to play tennis a couple times. The only damper on the vacation was Hurricane Isaac. The storm didn't reach us, but it caused high waves and rain part of almost every day. Because of the unpredictable weather, Josh wasn't able to golf. We will have to  make it back to Hilton Head sometime in the future so he can see what he missed.



Grandma and Jesper playing in the puddles. Our townhome is behind them.

Waiting to go into the lighthouse

On top of the lighthouse

Walker and Grace on top of the lighthouse

 



Playing with Papa Paul

Bottle with Grandma

Jesper had a lot of "firsts" on this trip - first time in the ocean, first stick-on tattoo, first long car ride (thankfully, it went much better than Josh or I could have hoped). It was not his first time in the pool, but that might have been his favorite part of the whole trip. :) He liked to play "catch me Mommy" and step into the pool for me to catch him. We also spent quite a bit of time with him at the playground (it was only about 50 feet from our door). He learned to climb up the slide and then slide back down. So much fun for him!

Josh and Jesper walking in the waves

Josh and Jesper

Jesper and me

Playing in the sand - way better than the water. :)

He also had a scary first - he fell down about 6 stairs on our first night there. I put him on the floor after changing his diaper and he went charging towards the staircase and couldn't stop his momentum. He was scared but perfectly fine, but I was very careful about shutting the door to our while he was being changed for the rest of the trip. Thank God he wasn't hurt.

We didn't bring a  lot of toys for him on the trip, so when we were indoors we handed him the coaster ring from the table. He played with that for an astonishing amount of time. I'm always amazed at how the items that are not toys get played with the most. :)


Jesper and his "toys"

Our pictures from the vacation are a little foggy because it was so muggy while we were there.  Typical weather was about 95 degrees and very humid.

Separation Anxiety

The funny thing about toddlers is that the more independent they get, the more they seem to need their parents. Jesper had only a touch of separation anxiety when he was younger, but it seems to have gotten much worse since he learned to walk.

Josh got out of the car to go into a store and I filmed Jesper's reaction.

Let's Play!

I had to do an update about how much fun it is to play with Jesper. He is learning something new every day, and I’m often surprised that he knows how to do something or how well he understands what we say. It’s so fun to watch him learn!

Current favorite games:

• Acting Out “If you’re happy and you know it”: As soon as this song comes on our “Toddler” radio station, Jesper starts clapping his hands and stomping his feet along to the words.
• Singing Along to “Six Little Ducks”: I wasn’t familiar with this song, but like all toddler songs it has pretty simple components. The chorus is something like “Six little ducks say ‘Quack Quack Quack’”. Jesper heard this song and he started saying “Quack quack quack” along with the chorus. Okay, so it sounds more like “cack cack cack”, but you get the picture. :
• Bubbles: Everything in my toddler's life can be made better with bubbles. Did he just fall down? Does he have to have his diaper changed? Voila! Bubbles make tears disappear. 

• Reading books: All those evenings of reading together seem to be paying off. A few days ago, he was looking at the books in his room and he picked up “Red Hat Blue Hat”. The whole book is pictures of animals wearing an item of clothing in a different color with the last animal wearing it incorrectly. For example, the words on the first page are “red hat, blue hat, green hat, OOPS!” Jesper opened the book and said “da-duh, da-duh, da-duh, UH!” in the same cadence and intonation that I use when I read it. I dissolved into a big puddle of mommy pride. What a smart kiddo!

• Being Outside: Jesper will pick up his sandals and follow me or Josh around the house with them. He gets SO EXCITED when we put them on because it means that he gets to go outside. We don’t even have to do anything outside. He just wants to wander around. Or eat mulch. Or pull leaves off the hostas. You know, normal things for a toddler to do. :)

These leaves come off, Mom!

Can we stay outside all day long?

• Water Play: He still loves his bath, but now playing with water has expanded to the backyard. We have a little hard plastic pool that we get out for him on weekends. And last week, we introduced him to the hose and sprinkler while we were watering flowers. Wow, did he think that was fun!

• Stacking Blocks: I bought the cheapest square boxes of Kleenex that I could find at Target and gave them to Jesper. He loves them! He can stack towers higher than he is tall. Did I mention that this kid is smart?!

Everything is a block

His comprehension is growing quickly, too. Now when I ask him if he’s hungry, he walks over to his high chair and starts to pull it away from the wall. What a difference just a few weeks make!

Tongue-Tie Surgery

Jesper’s tongue-tie surgery was scheduled for June 15.

On Thursday, June 14, I noticed that Jesper felt a little warm when I dropped him off. I took his temperature and it was 102 degrees. No school for him that day! I called the doctor to see if we could still move forward with the surgery, and they said that it would probably be fine long as he didn’t have nausea or diarrhea.

Josh and Jesper "watching" the US Open

Jesper was clearly not feeling great on Thursday. He took 3 naps, didn’t eat dinner well, and went easily to bed by his normal time (NOT normal after 3 naps). However, his fever broke overnight and we took him in to the outpatient clinic for his surgery.

We were with Jesper while they put him under with gas and the surgery only took about 10 minutes. They clipped his frenulum and put in 2 stitches. The doctor said that it probably felt like he had bitten the underside of his tongue very hard but would be feeling better within a day or two.

Dressed in scrubs and waiting for the doctor

He was NOT happy after coming out of the anesthesia. We comforted him and took him home. He didn’t eat or drink as well as normal and drooled excessively all day on Friday. He also didn’t want his pacifier because it seemed to hurt to suck on it. Maybe as a result of that, he didn’t sleep as well as we expected him to and wanted to be held all day long.

Saturday was similar, but the drooling slowed a little. Josh and I agreed that if he still wasn’t eating or drinking well on Sunday morning that we would take him in to the doctor to make sure that nothing else was going on. Both of us were concerned that he might have strep because it had gone around his classroom a couple weeks prior.

We were at Urgent Care nearly as soon as it opened on Sunday. They gave Jesper a quick strep test and it came back positive almost immediately. We got him antibiotics right away. Sunday was a little easier than the rest of the weekend and he seemed to be feeling better the next morning after being on meds for 24 hours.

Poor kid. He had a bad case of strep AND had his tongue cut in the same weekend. On top of that, we didn’t give him back his pacifier. As always, though, Jesper adjusted easily and seemed to be feeling better on Monday. Daycare was amazed that he didn’t seem to even miss a beat while breaking the pacifier habit.

Feeling better later that week

Books!

Now he can stick out his tongue a little further than he could before, but not quite as far as other kids. It’s also still a little heart-shaped on the tip because the middle tongue muscles are still developing. The doctor told us to give him ice cream cones and encourage him to stick his tongue out and move it from side to side as much as possible. Too bad he’s a little young to appreciate those doctor’s orders. :)

First Steps!

Jesper took his first steps on June 2….backwards. Goofy kid. Apparently we’ve been encouraging him to move in the wrong direction. However, within a few days, he was walking (forwards) much longer distances. By June 9 he could walk a good 35 ft. from our kitchen to our master bathroom.

Walking Progression

April 18

May 19 

  May 26

June 6

June 9