SeaWorld Play - Update Part 1

Well - there has been enough excitement that this week is going to have two updates - the first one is as follows: 

Last weekend, we jam-packed in a lot of fun!  We had a get-together Sabbath night with some friends that we don't get to see all that often, which was really so fun to catch up.  The kids weren't used to playing with each other - there were two other girls that were 3 years old, so it was fun for them to get to know each other and play.  Kaleb had fun riding on the plasma cars with Calleigh on the back deck.  Zachary had a bit of a tough time sharing at one point, and went into his room to have some "regrouping" time.  Auntie Kelli came to the rescue and went in to offer her play-services, to which he is always excited to accept!  Before we knew it, Zachary was back into a wonderful mood, and playing very well with Braelyn - even at one point saying that she was his best friend!

Kaleb and Calleigh riding their plasma cars

Then on Sunday morning, we headed off to SeaWorld with Bruce, Jennifer and their two boys.  It was PERFECT!  The weather was cool for the most part, as well as the park was almost entirely empty!  We were able to get through so much!  We went through the new aquarium, which had really cool fish, while Bruce and Karis went on the new Manta roller coaster.  Then off to the penguins and the sea lions and sharks we went - amazing that we made it through all three exhibits so quickly!  After that, we walked through the horses before going to Happy Harbour area for kids.  We rode every single ride there - some of them multiple times.  This was Zachary's first roller coaster experience and he seemed to absolutely love it!  He was giggling along the way.  They also have sand pits, and nets to climb all over, so it was quite fun.  We capped off of our morning before heading home to naps with the feeding of the sting rays.  Zachary wasn't afraid at all, surprisingly, and much to Karis' delight he happily fed the stingrays and petted them!

We've been absorbing as much of the Olympics as we possibly can - and it is making our sleeping schedule suffer!  It is a good thing that they are only every two years, because otherwise we'd be exhausted!  :)

Phrase of the week:  Dat!!!  Kaleb has become proficient at indicating what he wants - it isn't a perfect "that" but close enough at least for the parents to understand him! :)  Zachary's phrase "check it out!" - who knows which adult he picked that up from, but it appears to be his favorite phrase this week!
 

Happy  Valentine's Day!  Amy is a sucker for Valentine's Day shirts! Love Kaleb's funny face!

The very first roller coaster ride!

Enjoying the free-falling Crab ride

Blake and Zachary "reading" their maps

Zachary feeding the stingrays - no fear!

Family Photo on the Carousel

Ambulance Timeshare Anyone? Update Part 2

Well, we didn't think that the regular update from last week was quite exciting enough, so Kaleb decided to throw some extra "gas" on the flames this week and come up with a REAL update! 

Kaleb woke up on Thursday with a very slight fever - but seemed to be acting just fine.  In the afternoon when laying down for his nap, he started coughing - or shall we say barking like a seal.  Karis called Jennifer to confirm his fears that this was croup, as Blake has had it twice, and sure enough over the phone Jennifer could confirm that it was croup.  Karis took Kaleb to the doctor while Jennifer came over and stayed with Zachary.  While at the doctor's, Kaleb had such a bad attack of coughing & stridor that the doctor did a blood oxygenation test and it was too low at 91.  So, off to FH South Karis and Kaleb went in an ambulance.  THREE ambulance rides in a year and a half - we've decided that we should buy stock in ambulance, or purchase a timeshare! The ER staff actually recognized us - that's when you realize how often you've been there!

While at the ER, Kaleb's fever shot up and he had a mild seizure.  So, apparently BOTH Z-boys get febrile seizures when their fever is too high!!!  They triaged him very quickly, confirming that it was moderate to severe case of croup and got him onto steroids and breathing treatments.  Because of the seizure and the respiratory distress, the doctor admitted him to the hospital to be watched overnight.  Karis took the night duty at the hospital with Kaleb while Amy went home to be with Zachary.  At midnight, Kaleb's breathing was labored enough that they moved him from his regular Peds bed onto the Pediatric PCU floor to have the higher level of care and monitoring.  The doctors didn't feel that he had improved enough by that next day, so we were in for a second night.

Mesmerized in the ER room by the moving pictures that are projected onto the wall

Amy took the second night shift, as Karis needed to have some much-needed rest.  She quickly discovered the same thing - there is no sleep to be had in the hospital when caretakers come in constantly during the night, and when your son insists that the only place that he'll sleep is laying on top of you.  Kaleb's breathing was labored enough that Amy just watched the monitor all night, wanting to make sure that his oxygen levels were staying high enough and that his heart rate and respiration cycles were staying on track.  So, not a wink of sleep to be had for Mommy either!

Kaleb was great during the day - it seems that nighttime is truly the worst time with croup - and would run around the unit with his wires stuck into the back of his shirt to keep them out of the way - flirting with all of the nurses!  He had an IV put in at the ER, so we were trapped with Kaleb being in the same onesie the entire hospital stay as it wouldn't fit over the IV board that was strapped to his arm. His day-time respiratory therapist quickly became his "girlfriend" and he'd run and hug her legs and sit on her lap as she worked on the computer. 

Hanging out in the playroom - wires and all

His "girlfriend" - she was so wonderful to us!  He loved her - even though he has a very grumpy face in this picture!

Hanging out with the ladies...

We finally were discharged Saturday night after two days, and thankfully he slept very well last night and didn't have any more attacks.  It is so wonderful to be at home where he can get a good night's rest!  At one point during the first night, Amy was completely flabbergasted when at 10:00PM the nurse asked if we wanted to put on a movie for Kaleb to watch!?  Does no-one put their child to bed early?  Another phrase that a parent never wants to hear came from the ER Pediatric Respiratory therapist - he happened to be on the Peds PCU as we were being discharged and said to Amy "Yeah, I was really glad when he started to respond to the treatment in the ER - then I knew I wasn't going to have to intubate him".  We're SO thankful that we didn't know he was thinking it was that bad at the time - that's information we're glad that he kept to himself!

Phrase of the week:  Zachary to Grandma:  "Can you do this, I'm 'over' dealing with it."  Ah, a 30 year old trapped in a 4 year old body!  Kaleb's word "ti-toe" - gotta love the "Goodnight Gorilla" book - Amy embellishes on one of the pages by saying "tip-toe, tip-toe" as the animals sneak into the zookeepers house and both boys picked up the tiptoe word from that story.

New Bike & Theater

Life has been busy enough that we haven't had the chance to post that Amy has gotten a new bike!  She had a mountain bike from her college years that frankly was not that comfortable for just riding around the subdivision in front of the Z-man.  So, after several months of this, it was decided that her Christmas present would be a new bike!  She calls it the "Driving Miss Daisy" bike because it had shocks on the front and back, a padded seat, and the handle bars are very upright (no more leaning way over with your back killing you!)  We went on a very long bike ride when we first go it - probably about one and a half miles with Zachary which was pretty impressive.  He kept saying that he wanted to go further, and finally when we turned around, he started to say "my bum is scratchy" which means that his poor little bum has gotten chaffed.  The parental decision was to have Daddy ride home with co-pilot Kaleb and bring back the van to pick Zachary up.  In the meantime, Mommy and Zachary pushed their bikes homeward!  We're looking forward to many bike rides while the weather is cool!

Last weekend, we took the boys to the Altamonte Mall Pinocchio's Marionette theater for a play on Valentine's Day.  It was about 35 minutes long, and both boys were quite engrossed.  Kaleb lasted for about 30 of the 35 minutes before starting to get restless, which was amazing.  It was a fun excursion for the family and Zachary talked about it for several days afterward, so we're counting it a success!

Phrase of the week: Mom - do you know how to count backwards? Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, "free", two, one!  Kids are amazing, they know how to do things that you don't remember teaching them - they are just little sponges!  Zachary can also count up to 30 with no problem and has "tandem-counted" up to 70 with Amy before where they counted together, alternating saying each number.

Amy & the new bike!

Daddy with his co-pilot Mr Kaleb!

Annual Park Picnic

Last Sabbath, we headed off to the park for our annual picnic with the Hilliards, Deiningers, Biris and Edris'.  There are a lot of kids at this point compared to when we first started, so it is great fun!  At this point, the older kids have all learned how to ride bikes, so we went to the Chapin Station park that has lovely riding trails there.  The weather has been chilly for Orlando (but hey, when 49 out of the 50 US states have all had snow this week with Hawaii being the only hold-out, what else could we expect!?) but it ended up being just perfect with a light jacket on!  Two of the kids (gotta love peer pressure) actually learned how to ride their bikes without the training wheels on!

One of the funniest parts of the picnic was that Zachary had "chaffed" his bum from the weekend before when we went on a very long bike ride (his poor bum seems to be rubbed raw if we ride too far) - anyway, Karis came up with a very creative way of providing additional padding to hopefully avoid further chaffing at the park.  The solution?  Putting a Maxi-Pad in Zachary's underwear - but Karis certainly did not want to call it a Maxi-Paid, so he told Zachary that it was "like knee pads"!  Unbeknowst of all of this, Amy had a hard time keeping a straight face when later Zachary came to inform her that his "knee pad" needed to be adjusted! 

The other event this week was an urgent trip to the Pediatric dentist.  We had taken the boys on December 20th and had fabulous reports on both of their teeth.  About 3 weeks later though, Amy noticed a fairly large brown spot on the inside of Zachary's back bottom molar that she couldn't brush off.  After getting Miss Jennifer's expert opinion (it is awesome to have a babysitter who used to be a dental assistant in her "pre-children" life!), we decided that it was probably best to take Zachary to the dentist to figure out what was going on.  It turns out that Zachary had a spot of defective enamel on that tooth that broke down rapidly after those 3 weeks, and once the enamel breaks down, it is prone to cavities.  So unfortunately our little Zachary had the beginnings of a cavity.  The dentist indicated that there is no true known cause for defective enamel and that it probably occurs as the teeth are being formed - which was nice in a way to know because it is very guilt-racking to think that we would have caused a cavity!  Because Amy had taken him so quickly, the whole filling procedure was amazing painless - they gave Zachary some laughing gas ("happy air") and didn't even have to give him a shot!  We were through with the filling in about 25 minutes, so we are so thrilled that we go to a Pediatric dentist!  They have a beautiful fish tank that the kids are enthralled with (fantastic at keeping Kaleb entertained while we waited) and toys in the back that the kids can play with as the dentist talks to the parents etc.  Zachary was not thrilled about going to the dentist (mom had to drag him literally in there), but was proud as a peacock as we left, telling Amy that "The dentist said that I was awesome, and a great big boy!").

We've taken the plunge and are beginning the transition for Kaleb from two naps a day, to one nap.  We're trying alternating days - one day he has two naps, and the next day he has one nap.  So far so good - and it seems to be keeping him well rested enough that he isn't a bear on the days that he's only taking one nap!

We're big lovers of the Olympics, so we'll be watching a lot of sports over the next 2 weeks - which we typically don't have the TV on very much at all anymore, so this will be quite the diversion.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

Phrase of the week:  Pease!  Kaleb has mastered please now, so we're moving along with the manners!  Zachary's phrase this week "I don't want to eat that - I'll eat it when I'm grown up!"  Ha ha - Zachary over the last several weeks is starting to exert a bit more "opinion" about what he's eating although if you help him, he'll usually end up eating all of his plate - but he gave a good try for getting away with not eating part of his supper this week!  We've typically only insisted that they try everything on their plate, and finish their vegetables but so far Zachary has really been a fabulous eater until the recent "opinionated" streak has started.  Kaleb on the other hand seems to be a bit finicky with eating his vegetables (amazing how you can put a spoonful of food in his mouth, and he can sort through the food and spit out the vegetables if he's really in a mood not to eat!) - but even he is pretty good if you can disguise the veggies well enough with other food.

Kaleb's getting to be such a big boy - climbing up the bars to get to the slide!  He is very independent, and would run off to play on the playsets without waiting for Mommy or Daddy to come!

 Kaleb showing how the slides are REALLY supposed to be done - feet first is for babies! :)

Five boys that are all within 6 months of each other - Luke, Cole, Zachary, David and Tyler.  The older and younger kids were off playing elsewhere

Auntie Lisa taking Luke's bike for a "spin"

Letter Factory

A long time ago, Auntie Lorie gave us a Leapfrog "Letter Factory" DVD - and when we returned from Christmas, we thought that this might be the prime time to bring it out and let Zachary watch it - he's been interested in his ABCs to a large degree the last few months, and sure enough - the DVD was a huge hit!  So much so, that in the space of about one week, Zachary has mastered all of his ABCs (he knew them about 90% before, but he would occasionally miss one or two when you would point them out in a book etc).  Not only did he master the ABCs, but he has mastered the sound that each letter makes.  It's so fun to see your kids learn new skills!  He loves to tell you the letters and the sounds that they make now.  Amy has started having him guess what letter certain words start with by emphasizing the first letter of the word for him - and he's batting just about a perfect score so far!  He thinks that it's a quite fun game, so it's a win-win all around.

Kaleb's language is exploding - we've been including his new words in the weekly "phrase of the week" but truthfully his vocabulary has just taken off like a rocket.  He's trying to say Zachary, "peek" (very handy for playing peek-a-boo, and socks!  We hesitate to say it, but we also think that he might be crossing over into the "independent year" aka "terrible twos" so we're beginning to experience shrieking (shrieking enough to wake the dead) when he doesn't get his way.  Such fun (almost as fun as getting a shot! :))  Ah well, at least we know that it is just a phase.

This week we have seen a fair amount of rain, and one day as Karis was leaving Miss Jennifer's with the boys, Kaleb discovered the mud puddles - and before long the boys were jumping and playing in the mud puddles!  One of the true joys of childhood!

Phrase of the week:  Mom, you're the best in the whole world.  Ahh, phrases like that make up for the ones in which he tell Mom to leave early from Miss Jennifer's! :)  Kaleb's phrase this week "heese!" - he has already picked up the habit of saying cheese when the camera comes out!

A sweet moment with the boys reading their books together in Zachary's room - Kaleb is in the middle of shouting "heese!!!" in this picture!

 The boys are being quite good playmates, and were enjoying the remote control car that Auntie Lorie gave them for Christmas. (P.S. - thank you Auntie Lorie for the correction - this gift is actually from Gram-Z! Mommy's age is finally catching up to her, and the memory is beginning to fade! :))