Our Son is Amazing

Hi all! I figure you might be wondering how our little guy is faring after our hospital stay and I have to say that he is just absolutely amazing. It's like nothing ever even happened. I was definitely more traumatized by the experience than he was. His Grandmother and Great Grandmother (she's 87!) came in town for a week the day after he got out of the hospital (the visit was already planned). We played tourist for a couple of days and Rinat really enjoyed looking at the paintings at the National Gallery which I was happy to see. And then his Uncle Walt and Cousins Sam and Sara came and it was just a whirlwind of activity and fun. He, of course, loved all of the attention from Gma and GGma (and the gifts they brought too!). And I think Sam, who's 5, is like a hero to him. I could almost hear him think to himself 'Wow, I want to be big and strong like him one day!' as Sam picked him up and bounced him around. And then Sara, who is 18 months to Rin's 15, is just enough ahead of him in abilities and just ahead of him in size that he just kind of followed her around to see what she did and where she went and he could almost do the same. And he, of course, wanted to play with the same toys, eat the same food, and do everything else the same too. It was cute. And, of course, Rinat just loved having Walt here too who is great with all of the kids and is the same kind of parent that we are. He is laid back and just wants the kids to have fun and enjoy being with their cousins. The only unlucky thing was the weather. Gma&GGma came in town to see the cherry blossoms and it was just freezing cold and raining here for some reason. And 3 stir crazy kids made it seem like there's more like 10. Of course having 5 stir crazy adults in our house didn't help either. But we got to play lots of Sam's' new game of Uno and it was fun for everyone anyway. We made it to the zoo the day after Gma&GGma left and proceeded to get really sunburned on the first warm sunny day of the season and we had a lot of fun seeing the big orangutan on the O Line. Then the next day, Gpa Byron made it up to visit for 10 days and we spent time hanging out enjoying the kids. Then Walt and the cousins left and Gpa B stayed and we did some sightseeing (the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception a couple of days before the Pope came, the Air & Space Museum, another trip to the Zoo) and some just hanging out. To be honest, I was kind of exhausted and after dad hopped back on the plane to head home, I looked at my calendar and realized that there have only been 5 days of just the 3 of us in the last 5 weeks. No wonder I'm beat! It was a tiring but great month (aside from the hospital drama) and it was fun to have everyone in town. And let me tell you a little bit about our sweet pea who is just getting bigger and bigger every day. Well, he's still just a little small fry (10% in weight and 50% in height- it's like we created him ourselves!) but he is acting a whole lot more like a big kid. He is just motoring around like a maniac. I swear, he'll be running any day now. Peter took him on a walk around the block after dinner tonight and he was screaming for more as we dragged him inside to take a bath. And he is talking and trying to imitate what we say all the time now. The other day, I pointed to a watermelon and he tried so hard to say it too. It came out closer to "dadabedah" but it had the right number of syllables anyway. He definitely has 'cracker' down pat and now that I finally turned his car seat around and he can see me as we drive along, I can no longer sneak in a quick snack for myself on the way to somewhere because I hear 'CAH-KOO, CAH-KOO, CAH-KOO' from the backseat until I share my cracker with him. His new obsession is the ceiling fan on the neighbor's porch. I actually had to move his high chair so that he could see it as he eats because he kept trying to climb across the table to look out the window and check and see if it was on. His hand sign for it is that he points up, waves his little hand back and forth, and says "woooowooowowoowooo". It's kind of adorable. And he is such a big boy now that I gave him his first shower and he did great. We had been practicing for the last week or so by me pouring water on his head in the bath so that when I actually put him in there with the shower on, he just climbed right under the stream and laughed his little head off. Gosh I love that laugh of his. It's kind of like a deep down to the core chuckle that is so infectious. It makes you want to do whatever it was you did to make it happen again and again just so you can hear it. What can I say but that every single day is a joy- even today when he spent half of his music class screaming and trying to leave and the other half of it trying to steal the other kids' toys and then screamed because it was time to go. Ahhhhh, toddlers. I hope all's well in your life. -m