Everyday Life

We've mostly been busy around here with little house projects and lots of doctor visits. The home nurse comes out every Friday, plus for the next couple weeks we have 2 more doctor visits each week! James had shots at Steve Davis' office yesterday (poor little guy had a miserable time falling asleep = miserable parents too!), today he sees the surgeon (they're thinking of doing his reconnection surgery in April), next week he goes for a physical therapy evaluation and Maddie goes back to OHSU for a kidney follow-up. It's pretty pathetic that the only time I get out of the house is to go to a doctor or the grocery store! Ugh. I'll be so glad when flu season is over and we can take James out more. I get such cabin fever!

Having a big sister like Maddie is built-in entertainment! James adores watching her do everything. Here she was running laps around the dining table ("Mom, count down from 100, okay?") and then stopping for "drink breaks".

Maddie gets cabin fever too, so Nana and Papa take her on dates once a week and also, for the last two weekends, have come over to take her on long bike rides! They're so awesome.


As far as house projects go, you know how one task tends to snowball into lots more? Well, we wanted to finally set up James' nursery so he could stop sleeping in the living room. (Seems like a theme with us...Maddie didn't get into her nursery until about 6 months old either!) Well, Keith's home office was set up in James' room and my office was set up in our guest room. We'd thought about building a Murphy bed (folds up into the wall) to make more space in the guest room, since it only functions for guests about 1 week out of the whole year. So Keith dismantled the bed and took out all the furniture. Then we changed our minds about the Murphy bed, so the furniture was set up again. We moved my desk down into our bedroom (which fit, with literally about 1 inch to spare) and, while it's not ideal, I love it! Now I can be on the computer even while James is hooked up during the day and Maddie can play learning games on the computer without needing to be upstairs by herself.


Once my desk was moved, Keith moved his office into the guest room and then we could actually set up James' room! Whew! That whole process only took about a week! I still have some tweaking to do in James' room (hanging mobiles and art on the walls), but I love how it's turning out. LOVE LOVE LOVE the Expedit bookshelf from Ikea (I've been wanting one for years) and seeing all the handcrafted stuff I made for his room...ABC wall hanging, paper sunflowers, mobile, letters for his name, lampshade. So colorful and fun!


Miss Madeline is just such a crack-up. Sometimes I just don't know where she comes up with stuff. Like just now, she called to me from the living room, "Mom, next time it's Christmas Eve, I want you to get me a REAL MONKEY, okay?" Um, what?! The other day in the car she said, "I sure miss my friend Pete." (Pete who?) "My friend from Mickey Mouse shows." (But he's a character on TV. He's not real, Maddie.) "Yeah, but I have an idea! Daddy could take the TV down off the wall and we could drill a hole in it and then I could get small like a baby and crawl inside and see my friends!" Wowzers, she's quite imaginative! :-) Also, you know your kid needs to get out more when you take her for a check-up and the doctor asks who her friends are and she says, "Hmmm...let me see. I know! Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Daisy, Minnie and Pluto!" (As I simultaneously roll my eyes and hang my head in shame.) She's just dying to get to go to preschool, so we'll definitely be starting that up in the Fall! :-)

Nightly wrestling match on the bed...James can't wait to join in!