Jenn and Carter Visit + Time Away

To set the tone - this is Angello.

Dianna's cousin, Jenn, came out for the south of Jersey in order to watch Vinnie and give us some time off. We used this time to visit Fallingwater, the private residence built by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Kaufman family. We left Saturday morning and returned mid-afternoon on Sunday. Needless to say, we had a great time.

We did indeed (this is Dianna). A huge thanks to Jenn for making the six hour trek all by herself while 29 weeks pregnant and with her 12 month old son, Carter, in tow. We came home to a cleaned house and homemade Chicken and Dumplings. Mmmm....

Thank you so much Jenn! We had a lovely time away and Vin had so much fun hanging with his cous Carter.

Jenn and I. yes, I know I'm looking tired, pale and bloated. Whoever said pregnancy is beautiful didn't consult with a preggo in her last month of pregnancy.



Comparing the baby bellies.







FRIDAY NIGHT - TRAX FARMS VISIT

Of course, the boys LOVED the tractors

Jenn and Carter

Carter giving me hugs. What a sweatheart he is.

Carter in the pumpkin pile

PICTURES JENN TOOK OF THE BOYS WHILE WE WERE AWAY

Carter and Vin eating



Carter - what a charmer!



Enjoying a video while sitting on their potties with their blankies.






Serious business going on here.




While we were away Jenn took the boys shopping. She is one brave gal.





PICTURES OF OUR TRIP TO FALLING WATER

Trax Farms Fall Festival

Enjoying hayride

Not digging the whole "put Vinnie in a bunch of pumpkins for a cute picture" idea

So excited that Mommie is finally letting him run around

We had such a great time taking Vin to the Trax's Farm Fall Festival yesterday. He especially loved the hayride and exclaimed "Tractor!" "Tractor!" "Tractor!" the entire time. Kind of embarrassing. Common kiddo can't you say something else so these people don't think you are a tractor freak. I don't know maybe say something about the pumpkins, pigs or other livestock we saw on the ride. Nope - it was all about the tractor.

Health Update: He is doing much better with his asthma today. Yesterday, while running around outside at the festival he worked himself up into a coughing/wheezing fit a few times but he slept well last night. His breathing sounds almost completely clear today. I can only hear wheezing when I put my ear to his chest or back. Hopefully, we can go off the heavy dose of steroids and albuterol tomorrow and move on to his preventive medication routine.

Aren't Dads Great?!

I cannot wait to hear Flood comment on the boxer peak going on in this video. Sorry about that Jason, but it was too cute of a video not to share.

Trip to Children's Hopsital

Vin started up another cold on Sunday, which is nothing unusual since he's been averaging a cold every two weeks. (I do not exaggerate here - it's been every stinking two weeks). Then last night he began his usual wheezing, so we started his breathing treatments. Normally this works well and we end up having to give him treatments every four hours until he gets over the cold. But last night he started wheezing within an hour of his treatment. We severely underestimated the gravity of the situation and tried to push him to wait the four hours. Well, he was up all night and we thought he was just being difficult. We even scolded him when he kept getting out of bed and then we gated him in his room to cry it out. Well after about a half hour of listening to him cry I got up and took him downstairs. When I turned on the kitchen light I was frightened by what I saw. He was pale and his skin was all blotchy and his lips were slightly blue.

I gave him a breathing treatment right away and saw some improvement but not much. I called the his pediatrician as soon as they opened and they sent us over to Children's Hospital. By the time we got to Children's Vin was in pretty bad shape. They took him right back and began a hour long breathing treatment. Still no significant improvement. It ended up taking six hours and multiple treatments in order for him to get back to decent breathing shape.

They ended up discharging us around 5:oo. We just got home and he is wheezing again. Grr... Hopefully, we will not have a repeat of last night or it's right back to Children's for us.
Poor little dude. I guess the good news for him is that we are officially out of denial now and have fully accepted that he is an asthmatic. Though he was diagnosed in May we haven't put him on the daily steroid they wanted us to put him on because we really didn’t like the idea of it. So we were just treating his wheezing on a needs basis only. But the doctor at Children's gave us a good talking to today. We feel like we have a much better understanding of why he needs to go on the steroid and how the inhaled steroid is very different from typical systemic steroids.
We are all tired but Vin handled it all like a champ. Even when his parents, unaware of how much he was struggling to breath, scolded him in the middle of the night for not sleeping. Oops. This parenting stuff can be tough sometimes.

Here is a pic I took with my phone while at the hospital. This was the first time he was able to fall asleep and stay asleep since 2:00 a.m. He looked so peaceful I snapped a shot and then sent it to Jason at work so he could see Vin was doing better. Ja was able to come over to the hospital later in the afternoon. Vin was so excited to wake up and see his Daddy there. It was the first time he smiled while at the hospital.

Wanna talk financial???

So WaMU failed - the largest bank failure in the US to date. Shiver. Well, I guess it didn't really fail because Super Fed stepped in for the rescue. I don't have a full understanding of the dynamic of our financial markets but I am so darned opposed to all these bailouts. May sound hypocritical since hubby's company was saved by a bailout, but it all seems superficial to me. Maybe they should have let AIG fail. The Fed is taking unprecedented steps to keep our economy from sliding into a recession (I really think they are fearing something far worse than this, but in keeping with Reagan's" consumer's perception is king" rule, they won't say it). Anyone else worried that they really don't know the consequences of what they are doing? What do you think? You for or against the bailouts??

WSJ.com - Futures Fall as Bailout Jitters Risehttp://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vb25saW5lLndzai5jb20vYXJ0aWNsZS9TQjEyMjI0MjU1MjEzNDY3ODY1My5odG1s

Monster Butterflies

Anyone else tired of looking at the freakishly closeup of butterflies? Yeah, me too. I'll try to change the background this weekend. Sorry, the tickers are staying. They help me keep track of how much more time I can procrastinate with getting the baby stuff out and organized. You know what I always think of when I see the countdown clock for Luca- that Johnny Cash song "25 Minutes To Go". If you don't know this song it's because you probably don't have a child who is obsessed with Johnny Cash like ours is. Most disturbing is when I was driving into the city to pick Jason up one night and I had Johnny on for Vin. I heard soft giggling in the back seat. "Cocaine Blues" was playing and Vin was cracking up after each verse. He especially liked the part when he says "Shot her down because she made me slow. I thought I was her Daddy but she had five more." and "I can't forget the day I shot that bad b**** down." Oops. Didn't know that was in there. I think Vin was probably laughing and cheering because the crowd does on the CD. Or we have a really sadistic kid. Whatever, the case that song has been removed from Vin's playlist. Anyway, I'll try to post "25 Minutes to Go" on the blog so you can enjoy. No doubt, it will be uplifting for all. Hey, look how long this paragraph is. Ridiculous.

Mom's Lifeline - Is it Thursday yet?

We recently enrolled Vin in a program called Mom's Morning Out. The idea behind the program is to give Moms some time to themselves while also helping little ones get used to being separated from Mom. They also focus on getting them used to being in a class setting and with following a routine. It's every Thursday from 9:00 to 12:00 and runs through May.

When I first signed him up I thought for sure I would have a hard time leaving him but the first day proved me wrong. We walked in and Vin saw all the toys and kids and looked at me and said "Down Please". He wiggled out of my arms and that was it. I hightailed it out of there and right over to the local Starbucks where I stayed for the entire time catching up on reading and enjoying the quiet. Ahhh.. Sweetness.

The second week proved a bit tougher. We walked in and ALL the kids were crying so Vin also started up. I put him down, kissed him and then ran. I felt bad for about two minutes and then I was back to enjoying my time alone. Yes, I know I'm heartless. When I picked him up he was playing quietly by himself. I wouldn't say he was happy but he wasn't crying either. We, shall see how he does this week.


Sporting his new shirt from Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop Mitchell on his second week of Mom's Morning Out.





Playing with Alexander at the park.

Our Hope is Built on Nothing Less

It's 7:32 a.m. Tuesday morning. Vinnie is watching Elmo Potty video and our ticker just reminded me we have 42 days 4 hours and some minutes before Luca (yes, we are leaning towards Luca) arrives. Jason just left for work. We spent to morning shaking our heads in disbelief over the recent occurrences in the financial market and more specifically at his company, AIG.


If you haven't been following the news here's a short recap: AIG's stock closed at $4.76 and is currently trading at $2.85 with after hours trading. I was joking around that we should trade in our almost worthless stock certificates for confederate bonds as the paper would be cooler. This is the same stock that was $70 a year ago as the company boasted of being the world's largest insurance company. Now they are not even the largest insurance company in the US. They were downgraded last night which could prove to be the last straw for the once invisible giant.


For us it's not the short term challenges that we are most disappointed by, though they are not something to easily dismiss - we have a baby on the way, we are in Pittsburgh, which doesn't exactly have a booming job market, and if AIG does fail the market would be flooded with insurance talent. But more importantly it would be the loss of the long term stability that AIG offered us - benefits, a promising retirement (pension, 401K), job stability and unlimited career opportunities.


Ja and I were discussing this morning what a great reminder this is of how little control we really have over our futures. It's one of those things that we "knew" but the reality of it didn't really sink in until something came along and rocked our well laid plans. A line from one of my favorite hymns keeps popping in my mind "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name." And how much less is AIG and our own talents and abilities to provide than Jesus' name. While anxieties may very well creep in if Jason does end up loosing his job, right now there is a blanket of peace in our household.



Philippians 4:5b-6
The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.


Enough of that stuff now on to some recent pictures!
Two Sundays ago we had the pleasure of spending the day with our nieces - Savannah and Lexi




"Whatcha got there Aunt Missi?"


"A lollipop (or b-bop as Vin calls it)!" Now Vin runs around saying "Missies, b-bop!"



Our non-climber finally figured out how to climb up on the chair. His inspiration: the construction vehicles working out in front of the house.

If We Could Just Be Naked All Of The Time...Need Advice PLEASE!

As some of you may recall we started the potty training process before we moved. I was giving Vin 3-4 hours of "naked" time in the morning where I would sit him on the potty every 40 minutes or so. He loved it because we would read books while he sat there (sometimes in excess of 20 minutes). Yes, he "went" all over the apartment and I spent most of these mornings running around with a bottle of resolve carpet cleaner and a sponge. But occasionally he would "go" on the potty and it was through these times I was able to get him to start recognizing when he was "going" and that "going" in the potty was a good thing. It didn't take him long to get it and then he started telling me when he had to go.

Then we moved and I stopped with the naked times since I was consumed with unpacking and all the stuff that goes along with moving. Two weeks ago I started back up again and Thursday and Friday of last week marked huge victories in our potty training trials. He went accident free all day and told me each time when he had to go and then went in the potty. On Friday he even told me when he had to go when he had a diaper on. He said "Potty PLEASE!" and then stood there wiggling until I put him on the potty. He went and we had a huge celebration. You should have seen his face. He was so proud of himself.

This encouraged me to move on to the next phase of my diabolical (and totally unscientific, I might add) potty training plan. This weekend we started putting him in big boy underpants which have a bit of padding to them and then plastic pants over top. I thought these would be better than traditional pull ups because he could really feel the wetness. This is important because he is already used to feeling wetness since cloth diapers are far less absorbent than disposable diapers. And being a cloth diaperer at heart, I love that they can be washed and reused. Well, it seems when the underwear are on all thoughts of potty go out the window. He treats them like a diaper - "going" at free will without a care in the world. Yuck!

I went back to naked times this morning and he's right back on track with telling me when he has to go and holding it until we get to the potty. So how do I translate the naked training to underpant training?? I'm at a loss here people. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

The Date Has Been Set - 54 Days to Go!

Unless this one decides to come early like his brother, he will be born at 38.5 weeks via repeat c-section on 10/28! Something about knowing the date has made it seem so real and so close.

30 Week Picture