The past couple days

The weather has been amazing for November. It's been in the 50's for the last several days and I've been enjoying every second! A couple days ago, I took the boys out to play. Landyn loved it. Kolby...uhh...it took awhile. He freaked out at first and had to keep hugging me. Eventually he got to where I could move a few feet away and he'd be fine playing with the leaves. I'm not sure if it's the open spaces or what that freak him out since he does the same if I try construction cleaning. Silly boy.

Landyn trying to 'plant' his 'tree'
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Warming up to the great outdoors and sampling a few of the many varieties of leaves available;)
* * * * *I made burritos the other night for supper. I covered the boys' in guacamole and sour cream and they devoured them--while the 'men' complained they were too spicy. Wimps.
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Today I headed to Sioux Falls to get Kolby's orthotics checked out. They determined his feet had been sliding forward so switched the velcro straps out for ones with buckles. The braces should be good for a few months still.
And of course I had to go shopping after that! Went to the mall where Kolby discovered an adorable little boy in the mirror in the play place. He had quite a time smiling, talking, and attempting to kiss him. (Not that I blame him--like I said, the kid WAS adorable!)For awhile Kolbers didn't like anything on his face so I was amazed that he wore Landyn's shades until they slid off his little nose.
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And this was taken close to midnight last night. One of these days this kid WILL be on a decent schedule! Until then--I'll allow this late night bonding as long as he keeps flashing these grins:)
(That rash is refusing to go away....)

Hmm...what to say?? This pregnancy, like my others, causes me to get sick from being on the computer which is one reason why I haven't been updating. I usually don't feel as sick in the late late evening--but of course then I'm exhausted and I fall into bed as soon as Kolby is out for the night. Growing a human is hard work.

I deeply apologize to all whom we neglected to tell that we have bought a minivan. I am now a 'soccer mom'. Haha. Never mind the fact that it's highly doubtful my kids will ever play soccer. Anyways, it's a Dodge of course. And silver. And has a lot more room than my little neon did. And Landyn thinks it's very cool which of course makes it even better;). You can tell he isn't a teenager yet, hey?! And no, I was not pregnant when we bought it. Least not that I knew of anyway. So those rumors flying around when we brought it home--they weren't true Mom! (Ha!)

Other news:
Kolby said and signed his first word last week. It was "Daddy", of course. He only does the signing with prompting so it probably doesn't really count, but I count it anyway. We tried getting it on video along with the other silly things he does but he wouldn't cooperate and do the signing. Ah well, he's still cute.

Eric and Landyn were a bit bored one night..
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Kolbers snoozing away
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Believe it or not, those are the only pictures I had on my camera from the last couple weeks. I've been majorly slacking.

Baby #3

This morning Eric braved the slushy, snowy roads to drive me into my first doctor appointment. He drove around with the boys and even attempted a nap while I did all the boring stuff a first appointment requires. My old OB-who I had really liked-has moved to Washington. :p (I knew we should have moved back!) So I got to meet with a new OB who has only been here for a couple days. I must say I was actually fairly comfortable with him, pretty surprising since I'm not a fan of male OB's.
The first highlight of the visit was the doctor telling me I could opt out of the 20 week gestational diabetes screening if I wanted. Obviously, I'm fine with skipping that! The 2nd highlight was when they asked if I wanted an ultrasound. Uhh...of course!!! Here's our little peanut measuring right on time at 8 weeks 6 days. We could even see the beginning of the fingers! Even though I've had early u/s with both boys it's still amazing to see every little detail. For those wondering-I'm due June 5th. I've been feeling okay, somedays are worse than others but for the most part tolerable.
31 weeks to go;)

Adorable video of my boys being adorable;)

18 month WCC

There hasn't been a whole lot going on around here-which is why I'm majorly slacking on my blog.
Today I brought Kolby in for his 18 month check up. Thankfully they called us back before I had a chance to get settled in the waiting area-the room was packed and a majority of people were wearing masks. Kolby's weight's the same: 18 lbs even, but he has grown a quarter inch to 28". Doctor isn't at all worried so neither am I. He's been having a rash on his face the last few months that keeps appearing sporadically so she prescribed a steroid cream for it. Again, not worried about it because it's not bothering him. She gave him a clean bill of health and sent us on our way. Now I know it's probably not going to happen--but I really hope we're not back in there for either of the boys before Kolby's 2 year checkup in April! We shall see what the flu season holds for us...I'll admit I'm a bit worried about the H1N1 virus because the OT informed us the therapists out of her building had to get fitted for special masks they'll start wearing on all visits. Scary stuff!
Landyn does not approve of my mothering job lately-he's constantly bossing Kolby around or telling him the right way to do things. When he's not attempting to jump over him or wrestle with him that is. The other day I was sitting right by Kolby when he started banging on the wall. Landyn ran down the steps from his room, pulled Kolby away and started yelling at him telling him to "STOP! Go see Mom!". Looks like I've been demoted;).

And I know it's not a good picture-but you can't have a post without at least one picture! Landyn does a bit of copying Kolby and since Kolby was laying down he had to, too.

Picture post

Little Monkey
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And flashing his fake smile when he sees the camera
* * * * *Playing horsie with Daddy
* * * * *Least they're playing together, right?
* * * * *Caught Landyn comforting Kolby when he was waking from a nap
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Little Man started pulling himself up on Thursday...started with the short things and moved on to the furniture today.
* * * * *Isn't always sure how to get back down though, so I've been doing a bit of rescuing
* * * * *Landyn never leaves the table when I'm making breakfast...I found him studying the snow.
(Last night was first snow of the season...yuck.)
* * * * *So I sent him out to play in the little bit we got
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DS Awareness-Kolby's story

In honor of October being Down Syndrome Awareness month, I thought I'd post Kolby's story. It may be long and boring, so feel free to skip if you'd like;)

I found out I was pregnant the very end of Aug 07 when I was 4 weeks along. From then until 14 weeks I had bleeding or spotting resulting in 1 ER visit, 2 doctor appointments and a total of 3 ultrasounds during this time. Every u/s showed the baby's heart beating away but the doctor informed us that the placenta wasn't all the way attached and there was a chance of miscarriage.

Once the bleeding stopped the rest of the pregnancy proceeded as normal. I did skip the 20 week u/s because our insurance wasn't covering my visits. I was preparing to go overdue with this one since I was induced at 41 weeks with Landyn.

I went into labor Wednesday, April 16th at 37.5 weeks. Our baby boy was born at 11:55 PM and after trying my hardest to get Eric to agree to a different name (lol) we named him Kolby Mathew. Mathew honoring both my dad-his middle name- and Eric's uncle Matt who had passed away a couple months before.

The 2 nurses were pretty busy working Kolby over-but since part of the NICU team was in my room when Landyn was born I was just thinking how much more relaxing it was this time. I did wonder why he wasn't crying, but since he looked alert I figured it wasn't a big deal. Eventually they quit the poking and prodding and handed him over.
Later that night, when Eric and I were trying to get some sleep the nurse came into our room and informed us they had put Kolby on oxygen due to low levels. Eric and I joked that at least we remembered them telling us this time-when they put Landyn in the NICU the nurse claims she told me but I remember waking up and wondering where in the world he was!

The next couple of days blurred together so this next part may be off a bit:

Thursday morning the nurses and I tried our hardest to get Kolby to nurse but he wasn't having it. He was much more interested in sleeping than eating. I believe it was this day that I was studying him and mentioned to Eric that Kolby looked like he had Down syndrome. I looked at his hand since pretty much all I knew about DS was the one palm line, but his hand was normal so I rejected the idea. Kolby was back in the nursery on the O2 when a pediatrician came to talk to me. He asked if I had heard of Down syndrome-I excitedly told him yes and told him that I mentioned to Eric that Kolby looked like he had it. The doctor said "well, we really don't think that's what it is, but we'd like to send off a test just in case." Great small town doctors we have, hey?

Friday the doctors were consulting, running gestational age tests, and trying to figure out why Kolby's oxygen wasn't sustaining and why he didn't want to nurse. Kolby's doctor asked my permission to give him formula in hopes that might perk him up and get him to nurse. It did make him a bit more alert for a little while. He must have picked up nursing sometime this day because I know he was a great eater the whole time in Sioux Falls.
Saturday morning Kolby's doctor informed us that they thought he'd do best in a NICU-to get to the bottom of what was wrong with him. I believe she thought he had DS but didn't want us to worry in case it was something different. She did make sure we knew that he was being tested for it, and I purposely didn't ask her opinion on the matter. We chose the Avera hospital in Sioux Falls and the ambulance crew was up from there in a few hours. We quickly ran back home to pack before following down there.

The moment we set foot in the 3rd floor NICU a doctor was there to see us. He told us Kolby could have one of two things: either an infection (since I was Group B positive) or Down syndrome. I remember the nurses looking at us as the doctor was explaining to us what Down syndrome was. As the doctor wound down his speech and turned to go I asked him what he thought it was-and he told us he was almost positive it was Down syndrome. I wondered how we could stand there so calmly when we were hearing news that our son would never be 'normal'.

The nurse there for the shift was awesome and answered a ton of our questions, showing us Kolby's markers for Down syndrome and then gave us a tour of the 3rd floor. What made me know everything was going to be okay was the next nurse on duty. She was studying Kolby, answered a few more of my questions, then casually mentioned that she had a 3 year old niece with DS. She didn't act like it was a big deal at all and that was a huge relief.

The next week was spent waiting to get out of the hospital. We had a ton of visitors and alot of phone calls which helped the time pass quicker, especially since Eric was working during the day. Amazingly enough, he was framing in Sioux Falls during this time:).

We finally went home 1 1/2 weeks after Kolby was born.