A Laugh A Day

Rock hair and power stance.

A Laugh A Day: Faces

Hooray, A Birthday!

Isaiah turned one last Monday, and we had his birthday party at Grandma/Grandpa Singley's. The Jellings, Bouchas, and Dorotheos came over for swimming, cake, and general bedlam. It was a lot of fun. 

One point that made the party particularly fun for me as a host, was that pretty much everything was store-bought and low-stress. For Isla's first birthday, I pulled out all the stops - everything was homemade and cutesy and perfect, and I was stressed and didn't really enjoy myself. Not this time, thanks to Target, Sam's Club, and grand and great-grand parents.

Maybe it isn't fit for Pinterest, but Isaiah loved it. Especially the balloons. 

Ok, maybe we did make one thing, and it will probably be this way for every birthday since we have celiacs in our midst. Susan baked, I decorated. Here is the progression of Pooh (gluten-free):

I may have made a little mistake by not checking the Wilton icing tubes before I used them on the cake. Turns out the black and the red were not GF. Did I feel stupid? Yes. Susan tried to make me feel better by pointing out that the icing was so dry that they could probably just peel it off, and at least I had checked the label before somebody ate it. Nobody got sick, thankfully.

Isaiah and the other kids loved Grandpa's pool. It's amazing how kids can just jump into a cold pool and enjoy themselves. It took me at least ten minutes to get in completely, and I was only that quick because kids and adults (Kyle J) were lining up behind me on the ladder telling me to move it.

Will you look at that cake? We thank my mom and the fine people at Sam's for that beauty. We only ended up working our way through the cupcakes on the outside. We still have the main cake in the freezer. I am personally planning on eating it sometime, but I need to get over the idea of eating my son's face first.

At first Isaiah didn't really get what the fuss was all about (ok, I don't think he really ever got it). He didn't get the singing and was weary of the cake, but once he tried it, he decided it wasn't bad. 

My parents arrived with a huge load of presents, some of which were bigger than Isaiah.

Brett and I gave him something he has had his eye on for a long while, I think:

All-in-all, a fun party for a fun one-year old. Happy Birthday, Isaiah!

Number 1!

Isaiah's Surgery

10/6/2011

When Isaiah was around 2 months old, he had to go in for an inguinal hernia repair.

I noticed the hernia when he was a month and a half. Because of my training as an RN, one would expect that I'd have a stomach for unpleasant things pertaining to the body. I'd say that during school and while working as a nurse, that was true. Now that I am a stay at home mom, I must be going soft. I'm fine with the normal baby stuff - what goes in, what comes out (either end I might add) - as one would have to be in order to take care of children. But the abnormal stuff gets me sometimes. "Don't freak out, remember all the stuff you learned in school, it's not that gross," etc., I tell myself all the time. But now that I identify myself as a mom rather than a nurse, I always expect the worst and try to web-MD everything instead of first thinking about what the problem coud be on my own. Boy, I ramble.

So, basically when I noticed the hernia, I didn't notice the hernia. I saw one side of the scrotum smaller than the other and immediately thought, "Crap, where did the other testicle go? I would have noticed earlier if only one dropped, right? Could it have gotten stuffed back in there? How the heck do I get it out?" Then I called Brett. I figured that he would be more expert in scrotum-tology. He had to leave his home teaching appointment early to come back home and reassure me that our son indeed had both his testicles. Of course, by the time Brett got home, Isaiah's man parts were perfectly back to normal.

Did I mention that I have never really been around kids or babies other than my own, especially not male babies? Don't judge me.

Well a few days went by, and eventually I realized that he had a hernia and that it was protruding bowel and not a disappearing testicle that was the problem. Again, I'm not as dumb as I sound, I figured it out in the end. After some truly terrifying crying spells we finally pushed our way to a consult and got it all set up to have his hernia repaired.

I'm writing this well after the event, so I don't remember everything, but I do remember how nervous I was about having my new, tiny, perfect baby put under anesthesia. I remember crying the night before the procedure because I was so worried.

So the night before, he wasn't allowed to nurse. We were worried about Isaiah being hungry and inconsolable since he was so young and had never gone more than three hours without eating. It was a miracle that day. He hadn't had anything to eat after 2 am the night before. He didn't cry and didn't complain. He slept for longer periods than he ever had prior to that day (and following that day he resumed his normal schedule of eating a ton and being a bad sleeper) and was pretty much a dream baby. They took him back, his surgery went well, he recovered perfectly and never had any complications. He is one now and still an awesome kid.

Here are some pictures of the hospital and him at the after the surgery:

Here he is waking up in PACU.

Bye, Papa!

We are extremely lucky to live so close to Brett's office that he can bike to work. It is a morning ritual around here to wave as he leaves. Isla has been waving to Brett every morning as he leaves for work since she was around 15 months old, and now Isaiah has joined in the tradition.

Summer Swim

**Disclaimer: Contains lengthy videos devoid of action or comedy but abounding in cuteness. Mostly for grandparents.**

The Daines' invited us over for swimming and a BBQ to celebrate a friend's birthday. 

It happened to be Isaiah's birthday as well.

Isla had a lot of fun with her new floaty-jacket. 

Isaiah had fun toddling around,

and jumping into the pool.

And Isla discovered the satisfaction of pushing her brother into the pool.

A Laugh A Day: Boy Can Dance

We got a silly kid's music CD as a prize from our library's awesome summer reading program. Isaiah has always liked music and has always bounced to the beat from the time he was able to sit on his own. Now that he has figured out how to stand and walk, his dancing skills have really taken off. Before we got the camera out, he had been swaying to the music for a good minute. We really weren't expecting him to get up and "get down."

One Yard Wonder

Here is cute Isla wearing a dress that I made yesterday. I was buying fabric for another project and randomly found a Riley Blake remnant on clearance (Sugar and Spice by The Quilted Fish). I have a fun sewing book that has 101 project patterns that you can do with only a yard of fabric. I was three inches short of a yard and still had plenty of scrap fabric left over. I'm getting back into sewing slowly and carefully by doing a simple project like this. As simple as it was, I still had issues with elastic and drew my own blood with pin pokes more than once. But ah, it's done. And it was nice to have it done in a day, much quicker than piecing my quilt! 

A Laugh A Day: Scary Eyes

Do you ever go through old pictures and videos on your computer and find forgotten gems? Here is one that I think was taken by my mom on her iPhone. Somehow it ended up in Lightroom. Lucky.

One of the funniest things about Isaiah when he was a newborn was his wide-eye expression, where the whites of his eyes were visible above his iris, like his eyes were the setting sun. It said surprise and horror at the same time. It was almost as funny as his bouts of cross-eyedness.

11-7-2011

Dizzy Spells

Isla's Neurology Consult

We went to see the pediatric neurologist today about Isla's dizzy spells. We went to our regular doctor on Saturday, they called us yesterday (Monday) to set up the referral and they saw us today (Tuesday). It was all set up pretty quickly so I didn't have much time before the appointment to stew and worry over it, but last night I was very anxious. I even shed a few nervous tears and said some extra prayers last night. The fact that we stayed up until midnight to watch our secret obsession, Glass House, probably didn't help my emotions or nerves. I was overtired and over anxious and that means tears. But the tears made Brett realize how worried I was, and I got him to take a half day and come with us to Kaiser.

I had set up babysitting for Isaiah with Jane Colton. I hate to ask her to do stuff for me because she is so busy, but she is a real friend so I ask anyway. This morning, Brett got me out of bed by asking me to answer a knock at my door. It was my mom. She was worried about everything too and decided to come over to help watch Isaiah. She texted me at 6, didn't I get the text? No. I am so glad she came. I love when she can hang out with the kids, and I didn't have to worry about Isaiah making Jane's day harder. Even with my mom's demanding job she manages to find time to help us when we need her. When I got home she had even swept, made our beds, and found our camera's lens cap that had been missing for two weeks! I love my mom, she is such a big help.

Anyway, we made it to the doc. She did a thorough neuro exam and ordered an MRI, which I will post about after it happens. The doc basically said Isla had "benign paroxysmal vertigo." She said that migraines in young children present as vertigo, and that Isla is likely to have migraines when she hits age 9 or 10. That is a bummer, but I'm glad it isn't anything more. All I need is a clear MRI and then I can stop worrying. She also mentioned that had Isla had more white patches on her skin (she has a big white patch birthmark on her back and buttocks) then she would suspect tuberous sclerosis. Of course we web-MDed it and the white patches look totally different than what Isla has, so it's not that.

Anyway, that was our uneventful doc appt. I am glad that isn't more to report.

**Update**

Isla's MRI results came back normal. I'm happy there isn't anything structurally wrong, and I just hope she grows out of it and it never happens again. My mom told my grandma what was happening with Isla's dizzy spells, etc., and apparently both my mom and grandma used to have unexplained dizzy spells when they were young children. Neither me nor my mom knew anything about that. They both grew out of it, and neither of them have migraines now. 

 She cried a bit after coming out of anesthesia, but after a parade to the recovery area (where she got to practice her princess wave) and a popsicle, all was well.