My husband, the big loser

Shockingly, I haven't haven't blogged about this yet, but it's probably just because I've been such a negligent blogger.

Over the summer John had a routine physical and was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. Yikes. Pretty scary. He has to take his blood sugar twice a day, take medicine daily, & change his diet. (Side note: I always thought diabetes couldn't eat sugar, not realizing that carbohydrates are really what they have to look out for. John's diagnosis meant a crash course in nutrition for the whole family.) Also, he was told the most important thing to do was lose a ton of weight, FAST.

We've adjusted to the diabetes. John's blood sugar is well controlled, we drastically cut the carbs we eat as a family, & John lost all the weight he was told to - over 70 lbs - in less than 6 months. He calls it the "fear of God" diet. As crappy as the whole diabetes thing is, he's SO much healthier now & I think having it might have saved his life.

Drum roll please:

BEFORE
(taken in April 2010)

AFTER
(taken in December 2010)

Congratulations John! You did a fabulous job & you look great!

Why I haven't had time to blog (an excuse in the form of photo essay & paranthetical phrases)

(Dexter walking at 10 months)

(The boys' first baseball game)

(Look, it's a Dexter holder)

Black beans anyone?

Tell us how you really feel

Dexter started solid foods almost six weeks ago. Well, I should say I started making baby food & shoving it in his mouth, because there was no actual eating happening for the first month, and this was the face we had to look at:


He's gotten much more enthusiastic about eating in the past couple weeks.

Things to do today:

Put bouncy seat into storage.

The ankle- (and face-) biters

A dog that intends to bite does not bare its teeth.
-Turkish Proverb

I learned this one the hard way. Cooper's bitten me several times, but not recently and usually just when he's teething. I think he's bitten John once or twice. He's never bitten another kid. Until last week.
We spent a few days with my parents, Dayna, Zak, & Caycee. Within hours of me & Cooper arriving, he & Caycee had a small tiff & suddenly she was screaming. I had no idea what happened until I saw her face start to turn red. Yep, he bit her on the face. What is wrong with my child? He bit several more times, & made several attempts. Time-outs didn't work at all (he laughed & played), so he got swatted on the butt a couple times. That seemed to get the message across at least. Luckily, Zak & Caycee (& Dayna) were very forgiving, although Zak & Caycee did yell, "Don't bite me!" when Cooper would chase them. I guess I can't blame them.

Coolest park ever

Caycee having fun, despite the large bite mark on her cheek.

Caycee & Zak with "babies" just like their mom & aunt

No cast!

Saw the orthopedic guy today. Cooper has a hairline fraction in his left ankle, but doesn't need a cast, thank God! The doctor offered to put one on if I wanted (no thank you!), but didn't think it was necessary, especially since Cooper's walking is improving. Poor guy - it must be so painful! But I know a cast would be a disaster so I'm so glad it's not necessary.

Cooper's left foot

Another trip to the doctor the other day because Cooper was still limping a lot & seemed to be in pain. More x-rays, but nothing visible. They gave us instructions to keep giving him Motrin & come back again if it didn't get better.
Today the pediatrician's office called. The radiologists looked at the x-rays & found a small fracture in Cooper's ankle. We're off to the orthopedic specialist this afternoon. I hope I'm not posting a picture of my baby in a cast later today.

Highlights from our week...

Cooper had his 15-month doctor's appointment this week. After much reading and research, I decided to go ahead and do the MMR as one shot. Cooper got the chicken pox vaccine too. I'm completely (and I know, probably irrationally) freaked out about the shots, but from what I read it seemed like the best thing to do.

After his height, weight, & head were measured, the doctor said he's thin! I guess he is, especially now that he's walking, running, & flailing constantly, but I just couldn't believe it! I'm so used to him being a roly-poly little guy. He used to be in the 90th percentile for height & weight, but he's now in the 50th for height & 35th for weight. Someone even referred to him as a "tiny little thing" recently. Crazy.

Flashback - Cooper at 3 months

My skinny boy

If you're wondering why Cooper's naked in the kitchen playing with wipes it's because he had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad (& leaky) diaper. It was so bad I didn't even try to use the changing table - just laid down one of the soft dog beds, covered it with a towel, & changed him right there in the kitchen. Then I let him run around naked & play with wipes just to keep him busy while I cleaned up the mess. Yuk. (Perfect posing for hiding the naughty bits, huh? Remember, he is a professional.)

It may be time for another haircut soon too; four strangers have referred to Cooper as "her" or "she" in the past week. He's been wearing red shirts when it happened - nothing girly. What's up with that?!

Today we had my friend Joslyn's daughter Althea's first birthday party. I made this outfit for Althea:




Cooper & the birthday girl really seemed to have a great time...

Joslyn & Althea

Althea very delicately enjoying her birthday cake

I swear, he usually doesn't wear a bow in his hair.

Happy birthday Althea!

The Extreme roller coaster

...or Sarah's worst nightmare.
A concrete floor, a huge incline, toddlers, & tons of speed. It just seems like a really bad idea, doesn't it?

Justin & Brad assembling the Extreme coaster. You know it's a scary toy when Justin is nervous about it.

Zak & Caycee trying a tandem ride. Afterwards Zak said, "Joe (he calls himself Joe) not do again." Maybe it's 'cause it was uncomfortable, or because it wasn't as much fun going down with Caycee, or maybe it's 'cause in a room full of adults he was the only one saying, hmm.. this definitely can't be safe!

It's hard to argue with those smiles though.

Christmas going downhill

This is John, back posting on behalf of my lovely wife. Today we have a lovely Christmas video. Zak and Caycee got some new stunt equipment for Christmas and Cooper got a free ride. If you listen closely, you can hear the cranial impact at the end!




I have never wanted a child's toy quite so much as I want this "Extreme" racer thingy. Adam tried it out as well, and I will never forgive myself for not having the video camera at hand.

How Big is Cooper?

This is John guest posting for this edition of "a work in progress."
Sarah asked me to upload this video from Cooper's first birthday party (the home version--one week before the road show was launched). For those of you with decent highspeed connections (welcome to the 21st century, mom) this is pretty entertaining. We lost a lot of video when our hard drive crashed, but fortunately, everything is back up and running. Cooper is now 14 months old, and we have washed most of the frosting out of his hair.

Visiting & the big N-O

We went to play with Zak and Caycee the other day and Dayna's sister Jamie was in town with her son Conlan, who was born the same day as Cooper. If it looks a little chaotic, it's because it is. We had the kids outnumbered 5 to 4, but somehow they still manage to bounce on the open dishwasher door, try to throw themselves off the couch, and climb onto high chairs. (Okay, all of that was Caycee!)
This is just the cutest snowsuit I've ever seen:
I also experienced what I've been dreading for quite a while. We knew it was coming; Cooper's been saying "Na, na, na" when I'm changing his diaper, or when he doesn't want to go to sleep. But while Cooper & Caycee were eating lunch I tried to put a spoonful of macaroni & cheese in his mouth and he said it. Yikes. He shook his head & said, "NO!" I'm sure we'll be hearing that a lot in the years (decades) to come.

Uh oh

Cooper learned a new trick today - taking off his diaper. Yikes. As you can see, we're back to the cloth diapers & so far so good. I think we may have finally beat the yeast! Of course, I may have just jinxed that. Luckily, most of our cloth diapers have snaps, which he can't undo (yet); this one was velcro.

Look Mom!

Cooper's new trick is climbing on the couch by himself & then running across it just to scare me. As you can see, he's feeling much better.

My poor sick baby

The man who doesn't relax and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, now and then, is in great danger of hooting hoots and standing on his head for the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse, a little later on. ~Elbert Hubbard

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once. ~Jennifer Yane

Cooper has croup. Poor baby.
John was off Tuesday & because I've been just a tad stressed lately, he suggested I take some time off. I used a massage gift certificate I've been saving and got a haircut, and John & Cooper got to spend some quality father-son time together.
Tuesday night Cooper woke up coughing and wheezing; he sounded like a barking seal. We ran a hot shower and sat in there with Cooper while it steamed up, and it seemed to help a bit. Last night it was even worse and this morning he had a fever. So off to the doctor we went. I'm still driving an hour to get to the doctor (I know, I'm an idiot, but I'm getting a closer doctor soon), but we got to have lunch with John. The doctor seems to think the worst of it was last night so I hope he's right. He told me to give him Benadryl; he said most kids get really drowsy when they take it (I sighed with relief), but some kids start climbing the walls (I laughed; there's no chance Cooper won't have this reaction). I gave him some tonight & he definitely didn't get drowsy. As far as climbing the walls, well, that's sort of Cooper's status quo so I didn't really notice a difference.
Of course this morning I was stressed because I was up for a long time last night with Cooper, and he's still sick & sounds miserable, we have to drive an hour (at least) each way to go to the doctor, & my back hurts (I know, I just had a massage! I think it has something to do with nursing Cooper in the steamy bathroom; there's nowhere to sit but the toilet seat and he's 24 pounds & likes to nurse for 30 minutes or so). In the kitchen we find our two dogs sleeping surrounded by eggs shells, raw meat wrappers, old fruit, and all the other garbage they tore from the bag I forgot to take out last night after Cooper went to sleep.
So I'm thinking, this is my punishment for taking some time off for myself (I know, I'm a cynical crab). But really I decided I should be thinking, it's a good thing I took some time for myself because otherwise there's no way I wouldn't be having a total meltdown now.
So that's my story. Cooper's asleep, for now. Hopefully he's on his way back to good health. You absolutely wouldn't be able to tell he's sick if you saw him; he plays & climbs just like when he's healthy. (His latest trick is climbing on the couch & if I'm watching he'll stand up & run across the couch, all because I couldn't resist the urge to smile at him once when he stood up & smiled devilishly.)
Okay, now go here. Do it now. Come on; you obviously have a few minutes to spare if you're reading this. I won't explain - just go there. You won't regret it. I promise. Aren't you curious?

Look what I can do...

Today I realized I can push my toys out of the way (why didn't I think of that before?) to get to the entertainment center.
Now I know why they call it an entertainment center! There's all kinds of fun stuff there. Mom already moved all the dvds on the lower shelves because I could reach around the toys to get them (& chew on them), but there's more dvds, some shelves, a VCR, & a DVD player - tons of fun stuff to play with. I can push in the VCR door and I even turned on the DVD player, pushed the button to open it, & pulled out the dvd.
Mom was so happy she yelled out in excitement! Several times. I gave her my best smile because I know how proud she was of me!

I turn my back for one second...

Naked breakfast

Cooper needed some air time for his rash so we tried breakfast without a diaper today (thanks for the suggestion Mom!). It actually worked surprisingly well once I got him in there, until...

I'm naked from the waist down!

Love those puffs!

I'm naked from the waist down... and pooping!

Up the stairs & back to the doctor (again!)

What a long weekend! Saturday we went to a first birthday party for our friends' Terrence & Jill's son Logan. There were tons of kids there & we had a lot of fun. Then we went to check out our friends' John & Larissa's new condo. It's gorgeous! I'm so jealous - I can't wait to move into our new place, wherever that may be.
John had to work Sunday & we had an open house (no one came, again!). Luckily, John didn't have to work as long as he thought so there was time for some quality Daddy-Cooper time. Cooper also went on a bit of a sleep strike - he was up on Sunday from about 7:30am to 9pm with only a half hour nap.
I thought maybe he'd sleep extra long last night (wishful thinking), but he woke up once to nurse, as usual, & then woke up at 5:50am! He did take a nap though, so that's good.
We were back to the doctor today. I swear, I'm not crazy. This is the 3rd doctor's appointment this month - I feel like people must think I have hypochondria by proxy or something (is there such a thing?). Cooper had his last dose of antibiotics (for his ear infection) Friday morning, but Thursday night a nasty rash popped up. I was hoping it would go away, but it got worse over the weekend & by this morning I was sure it was a yeast infection - poor Cooper! It looks so uncomfortable. We got a prescription for Nystatin cream & it should be cleared up in 5 days or so. We also have to get Cooper some nude time to let the rash air out; if anyone has any suggestions on how to do that safely (for Cooper & the carpet & walls!) let me know. Cooper took long naps in the car so hopefully he caught up on some sleep.

Here's some pictures from this weekend:

Daddy is Cooper's favorite playmate

Daddy taught Cooper how to climb stairs (thanks Daddy!)

I made it to the top!