Christmas 2010

Merry belated Christmas everyone! We had a great (and tiring) one and hope all of you did as well. Donovan was so excited for it that he got up at 6:30! Waaaayyy to early for mommy and daddy so we talked him in to snuggling in our bed from 7-7:45 then we started the day. Auntie Jenna, or "Zenna" as Donovan calls her, had spent the night and we had a great morning, taking turns opening our presents and watching Donovan play with all his new toys. Donovan got a car slide tower from Santa and it was his favorite gift, tied with a new hockey goal that came with 2 new hockey sticks that Tom and I got him. This Christmas Donovan really started to finally get how to open a present. He thinks that tearing and throwing the wrapping paper all over is great! After all the opening was done we had our breakfast casserole, which Jenna makes and has become a tradition that we will have to continue.

Around 11:00 Tom, Dono and I headed over to Tom's parents to do our exchange with Tom's side of the family. Unfortunately my parents were unable to come in this year so that was sad but Tom having such a wonderful family definitely helps distract from that fact. Donovan made out like a bandit again! Tom's brother Nick and his girlfriend Anna definitely went way overboard with their gifts for Donovan. He is one lucky and loved boy! The rest of the day we spent with Tom's family including his grandmother who is 96 years old, Tom's other grandmother, and two (well one is an honorary) aunts. It was a great visit but by the end of the evening we were all feeling exhausted. We were home by 6, Tom was asleep by 7:45, Donovan by 8:20 and me by 9:30. I am sure they will only get crazier from here too! Next year we will have two little bugs to help us celebrate the holidays.

We were total slackers on pictures after we got the presents open, and didn't take a single one at Tom's parents. Shame on us. Here are a few from Christmas morning though.

Our happy family picture. Donovan was annoyed we were making him pause his playing with the new car slide. As I said earlier, it was a hit. Good work Santa.
The favorite gift. We like it too because it is not too loud and it keeps him busy.
This is Donovan's "cheese" face. When we take a picture and ask him to say "Cheese!" he usually does and this is what you see.
Sipping some juice, eating some goldfish crackers he got in his stocking. Doesn't get much better than that.

Random factoid

Today Donovan turned 20 months old and I was exactly 20 weeks pregnant. Isn't that weird?

Donovan celebrated by screaming/crying from 12:30am-2:30am unless being held by myself of Tom. We both rocked him back to sleep only to have him wake back up and scream all over again. Then we let him scream it out, for an hour, at which point I picked him up and rocked him again. Each time he settled down as soon as we picked him up. Finally after rocking him asleep the third total time, I walked back to our room, got half way there and heard screaming. So guess who slept in our bed last night, between Tom and I? Yes, Mr. Donovan. I slept great but Tom woke up twice, once with Donovan's foot down the back of his shorts and another with Donovan's leg over his face. Donovan gets his weird sleep habits from his dad so serves him right. I have woken up with Tom's leg over my chest before so he deserves some payback. Of the 20 month old kind apparently.

Half way point

Tomorrow (12/22/10) marks the half way point of my pregnancy. I will be exactly 20 weeks along. For anyone that has been pregnant recently you know that it also means you get your second, and a really important ultrasound (US). It is where you get to make sure everything is developing like it should be and the baby has all the parts you are expecting it to have at this point. I was supposed to have this US done last Thursday but as I was brushing my teeth before grabbing Donovan and walking out the door, the doctor's office called to say that my doctor had to do a delivery and would have to reschedule. The next day she was available was the 30th, which I have to work, and then the 3rd of Jan, which I also work. So the alternative was to send me to the Perinatal center today at the hospital I work at and have them do my US. This is all they do there so I felt confident that I would get someone that would be more than capable of telling what was going on with the baby.

The US went lovely. It took about 3 times as long as I remember the 20 week US with Donovan taking (which also could have been because I had a 20 month old sitting on the table with me, trying his best to get in the gel and in the way in general) but I was loving every minute. I haven't really talked much about this pregnancy on here because this pregnancy is so different. For some reason, maybe because the pregnancy came a little earlier than we had planned, I have a hard time believing this is really all happening. I think part of it is I am so busy with Donovan that I don't have time to obsess over the pregnancy, like you tend to do with the first one. Also I feel like talking about it might jinx our good fortune. I know how blessed I am to have one healthy and happy child and I feel like there is no way I can hit that lottery again. It is probably just my profession that has me feeling this, but I have also had several people I know have bad things happen to their pregnancies or young children so I think I am also just afraid to open myself up and fall as hopelessly in love with this baby like I did for Donovan. I am just terrified, and waiting for some bad news, or something bad to happen. It feels all to good to be true.

Well today at the US I feel like I finally am starting to believe it and I have finally opened myself up to the fact that we are parents of two now. Not when I deliver, but now. There is a baby in me that I love hopelessly already. At Donovan's 20 week US we didn't really get all that many good views of the baby or pictures really at all. It was all about anatomy and checking everything. God blessed us this time with an ultrasonographer who is also a nurse who I sort of know. She is the writer of the Hawn blog I follow and link to my blog. She has lived enough in this life for 10 people and is wonderfully compassionate. I mentioned I was worried about the baby's heart being ok, and she spent tons of time looking it over for me. She also must have somehow known I needed to see some cute views of the baby to help everything sink in, because she gave us some really great ones. She was also so enthusiastic about little things, like the baby's cute feet or pike position of it's legs at one point, and it was just what I needed. After she pointed out the baby stretching out it's legs perfectly straight, I just started crying, and basically didn't stop until the US was over a few minutes later. It just finally felt real, like I could let go of all the worry (ok well some of it at least, let's not get all crazy) and just be happy for us and our family. Donovan is going to be a big brother and Tom and I are going to have another son or daughter! It is wonderful and such a miracle. When I saw the baby's profile, I could see Donovan in it and I think that was what really got me. We love Donovan so much, and his personality is so fun, what is this baby going to be like? I am so excited to find out.

We did mention to the nurse that we definitely did not want to see the sex of the baby so she had us turn away several different times. Once I was sure I saw a boy part, and I even said "Can I see the boy or girl parts now?" and she pointed right to what I was referring to and said it was the insertion of the umbilical cord. So this time I have no idea, not even a peak, of what we are having. Having said that though, after seeing the profile of the face I can only picture this being a boy since I think it looks so much like Donovan. I don't care what it is, I just want it to be healthy. I has been fun to speculate though. This pregnancy has been soooooo incredibly different from my first. With the first I had cramping and breast pain (sorry men who read this who are not my husband) right away, I had to go pee all the time, I lost 13lbs I was so sick, and I had the acne of a 14 year old boy in the midst of puberty. This time I was sick, but not nearly as bad (only lost a few pounds) and have had none of the other symptoms. So if you went from that, this is a girl. But lots of people I know have had same sex children and totally different pregnancies. So it could just be a trickster boy.

Anyways, I have digressed a million times but I needed to get that off my chest. Bottom line though, was that everything looked wonderful and our baby looks very healthy. Thank you God. Now we pray it stays that way and that I stay pregnant at least 17 more weeks, but less than 21 :)

Oh and I will try to put some pictures up from the US at a later date. They all have my last name on them and I try to keep that off the blog so I might have to talk the hubby into cropping some so I can post them. For now you will have to take my word, they are great!

Dad Post! Bathtub Learnin'

Howdy y'all, it's been a while since Dad posted about Donovan, but I had a startling discovery while giving him a bath tonight and I just had to share.

Now, Donovan knows some letters and will point out the ones he knows to you over and over again throughout the day. I'm speaking mostly of the P-E-A-C-E stocking holders we have sitting on our mantle. Many times per day he will point up to them and say "PEEEEEE!" or "CCCEEEEEE!" So we are well aware of the fact that he recognizes certain letters, but we have not exactly been quizzing him with flashcards or anything.

Well, during bath time tonight he was playing with all of these little foam letters and numbers that we had floating in the tub. I knew that he recognized some of them so I was pulling those out and asking him. He of course would tell me what each of those letters were (P, C, E, etc). He was doing so well that I just kept pulling them out of the water, holding them up and asking him what each of them was. If he got it right I put it down on the bath mat and if he got it wrong I threw it back into the water. I was shocked at how well he was doing and how many he knew. I had no idea! I yelled to Ellen that he was a genius and she was a little dismissive at first because I call him a genius all of the time, but then I made her come look at the bath mat. See below:


Needless to say she was as shocked as I was! How in the heck does he know all of those!? I was laughing out loud with each new letter I picked up once I got past about seven or eight of them. I was thinking to myself, "surely he has no clue what a Y is." And then "Y!" comes out of his mouth! WHAT!? How do you know that!? Where did you learn it!? He truly amazed me this evening and I couldn't be happier. What a wonderful little boy he is.

Here's my little genius after his outstanding display of mental prowess.

Denver or bust!

This past (extended) weekend Donovan and I packed our bags and flew to Denver to visit my parents. I have no idea why I thought taking a 19 month old on 2 flights by myself was a good idea but we did it and I am so glad we did, we had a great time!

The trip out on Friday was a doozy. Donovan did pretty well in the airport but was near traumatized to death by the hand dryer in the bathroom due to its noise level (this kid does not do well with sudden loud noises). He did very well not wandering too far from me and thought all the airplanes were pretty cool but the trucks (baggage carts and what nots) were the best. He loved them. Boarding the plane was bit of a hassle because I had to many things to carry so Donovan needed to walk down the plane isle and that was too much for him to handle so luckily someone helped me out and carried his seat so I could carry him. We got settled in the plane and pulled out for take off, and then... pulled right back into the hanger. Not a good sign. Turns out the pilot's radio was not working and after maintenance came to check on it it was determined that they could not fix it and we had to deplane and find a new plane. Aaaaahhhhhh! Did they not understand I am pregnant traveling with a toddler by myself? This was too much and coupled with some technical difficulties from the cool roller thingy I had for Donovan's car seat (it turns his seat into rolling luggage and is worth every cent of it's 80$ cost) I was in tears. Luckily though after 5 minutes off the plane, I fixed the seat and they had found us a new flight. All in all it only delayed us 1hr 30 min and by the time we got to Denver and deplaned again, I was a pro! Donovan did great on the plane. The first time we were just sitting there waiting for the plane to taxi he kept saying "Go! Go!". Then when we actually took off (in the second plane) he was asleep in 5 minutes. Turns out plane engines are great white-noise machines. He only slept for 45 min out of the 2hr 20ish min flight but the rest we spent looking at books and watching Sesame Street on his personal DVD player. Thank the lord for that.

We were able to spend the rest of Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then into the afternoon Monday in Denver. It was so nice to see my parents and Donovan needed a break from St Louis because other then sleeping poorly the whole time we were there, he was on his best behavior. He played lots of "Neigh" with my mom. "Neigh" means "get out your i-touch and lets play games like animal sounds or pop the bubble wrap". He also got to watch and play lots of "hockey", still an obsession for him. We also took him out to eat several times and apart from destroying the clean floors, he did well there too. My highlight was Sat when we ran 3 plus hours worth of errands and got Donovan in and out of the car lots of times and he was so well behaved! We went to DSW and I was looking at shoes and my parents were in the front of the store with Dono. 15 min later I expected some exasperated grandparents to be giving me evil stares but they weren't so I had to check out what they were doing and Donovan was laying on a low shelf underneath a purse display just kicking his legs and looking adorable. He was crawling all over and running and having a great time. And I haven't run that many errands in one day since B.D. (Before Donovan).

It was wonderful just to have a low key weekend and spend time with my parents. Donovan enjoyed hanging out with "Paw Paw" and "Bama" too. And yes! The grandma's have names now! They are called "Bama" and it is adorable. Donovan got to meet his great Aunt Theresa and Uncle Chuck and second cousin Friday night for a little bit too. And we got to add another state he has been to to the list. All in all a great trip.

Originally when my parents asked us if we could come out for a visit they asked if all three of us wanted to come or just Donovan and I if Tom didn't think he could swing it. I wanted to give Tom a break since he took such good care of both Donovan and I while I wasn't feeling so hot with my pregnancy so I told him I would take Donovan by myself and give him a little vacation. Well it turns out, all he needed was a night because by Saturday he was texting and calling a lot and obviously missing Donovan (and me a little I am sure). Here I thought he was going to have himself a little bachelor weekend and he was bored and missing his wife and kid. What a nice hubby I have :)

The flight home on Monday was great. The best part of the whole experience though was that my mom was able to get a gate pass, something neither of us knew even existed anymore, and they let her go all the way with us until we boarded. Awesome! It was great to have the help while we ate and did bathroom trips and what not. We ended up having to hurry at the end because as we were dilly dallying to our gate my mom read it was boarding already. Oops. It turns out people were just lined up so we got in our place in line and there was very little waiting. Donovan was HYPER in capital letters on the ride home but he helped me eat a chocolate muffin so that kept his mouth shut for 10 min and then we watched Elmo for the remainder of the time. Occasionally he would let out a yelp of joy but it was just too cute to get annoyed with. Before we knew it we were home and seeing daddy again.

Well on to the part most people tune in for, the pictures.

Donovan and I after finally getting to Denver. The rolly thing that you attach to the car seat was a lifesaver! He liked it too. He would say "weeeeeee!" as I pushed him around.

Eating breakfast our first morning in Denver. Blueberry muffins that were all over the place by the end of the meal. Dixie loved it though because she doesn't normally get so much dropped food. She ate like a queen! I just love how expressive he is in these three pictures. He must have been telling a story.


Donovan and grandpa playing with the ever-popular i-touch. By the way as I type this Donovan is watching over my shoulder and pointed at my dad and said "Paw-Paw". He loves his paw paw B.

My mom picked up these awesome crayons that you use on windows. We had a lot of fun playing with those.
Looking into flashlights is fun too.
One night when we were eating dinner my mom started shushing Donovan because he was being too loud. Donovan thought she was hilarious with her futile shushing efforts. So they played "Shush" back and forth for a while and he cracked up the whole time. (By the way, these next two pictures is how Donovan shushes you).

For some reason which is beyond me, Donovan found Dixie's leash and really wanted to walk her. He would go get it and bring it to you and say "Walk". When it was too cold we would put the leash on Dixie inside and let him walk her around. It is an extendable leash but when we locked it so it was short he could pull her and when she walked too far away, she would pull him, which he thought was hilarious. This is the one and only walk he got to take Dixie on outside. Pretty adorable. (You might have to enlarge the pic but he is holding the leash by himself).
Playing at the park with "bama" and Dixie.
Fun times and Mohawks in the bathtub.
And nothing like a little naked time to dry off and run around like a crazy man after a bath.
And what does one little boy do when he is naked? Well read a book of course!

All in all a very enjoyable trip. We are glad to be home but miss my parents already. Time for them to move back I guess :)

Past week plus update

Well we have had quite the doozie of a past week so sorry for the lack of posting. I will catch everybody up on what's been going on around here in the Q household.

The weekend directly following Thanksgiving was all about Donovan and Ian getting some quality playtime. We hung out with the M family both Saturday and Sunday and the boys were so cute together. Saturday Ian brought his parents over here and they stayed for a long time and got some great quality playing in.
Donovan wanted to do or have whatever Ian did. Including his food. With the toys this got a little hairy but with the food it worked out nicely, Ian just decided to hand feed Donovan, and Donovan loved it too!


They also watched some Elmo together. Elmo is a big hit with both of the boys. Thank the Lord for Elmo. What did parents used to do without him?


The cutest part of our get togethers with Ian man on Saturday was that when we were all downstairs playing, Donovan would just randomly go up to Ian and give him a big hug! Sometimes the hugs were so big both boys would end up on the floor all tangled up but for the most part they were just good old' best friend, adorable hugs. We were not prompting Donovan for the majority of them either. He probably hugged him 10 times while playing. Of course my camera was upstairs so I was kicking myself for not getting it every time he did it again.

Sunday we went to Ian's house for a short hangout. The boys played again and it made Tom and I realize that we finally have to admit that our little boy has become a non-sharer. For so long we were so impressed and bragged about Donovan that he didn't really care if kids took his toys and was such a great sharer. Well that ship has sailed and sailed far, far away. Now he hoards toys just so Ian won't play with them. He will have 5 trucks in his arms and as Ian would reach for another truck, Donovan would grab it so Ian couldn't have it. Needless to say we need to work on our sharing skills.

So that was the fun part of past week, but now to the doozie part. Emily and John had told us that Ian had the stomach flu on the previous Sunday and that they both got it on Monday but since it was just a 24 hour bug and it had been multiple days we were not concerned about it. Monday morning Tom woke me up at 6:30 before he left for work saying that Donovan had thrown up in his crib overnight and that we needed to clean him up. Poor guy was sound asleep when we went in there but he needed to be changed because he was covered, his friends were covered (blankets and animals) and the sheets were covered in the previous nights dinner. Donovan woke up super happy when I changed him and I managed to get him back to sleep after 30 min or so but at one point he almost threw up again but managed to fight it off. That was the first time he had ever thrown up and it was probably in his sleep so when he almost did it again he looked so scared. The rest of the day was pretty good. Donovan acted normal and happy but didn't have an appetite and so he didn't eat anything all day but I was just fine with that. He did have three bouts of diarrhea in the afternoon but then he was really acting fine.

So that night (monday) around 7:15 we were playing and Donovan pulled on one of the stockings hanging on the mantle. This pulled down the heavy stocking holder right on his head and split his head open right below his hairline. He screamed, he bled, and we called the Dr's exchange and talked to our Dr who told us to go to the ER. So to the ER we went. The ER was pretty deserted, well the adult one was, but the Ped's ER was hopping. I was nervous about being there because Dono had just had the stomach bug so I was assuming his immune system was down, and there were tons of sick kids in there. I wished we could have been in a little germ free bubble. So after waiting about 20 min, they called us back to triage and they put a bandage with numbing gel on it on his owie. Then back to the waiting room for another 15 before they called us back to the room. The Dr decided to do glue instead of stitches which I was a little hesitant about because anyone who knows Donovan knows he is a bruiser and a rambunctious child and I was worried about the glue being strong enough but I thought, "She knows best". So to get Donovan still enough to do this we had to put his arms straight down and behind him in a pillow case, then we wrapped him in a blanket and then I gave him a bear hug. Then Tom held his head. Poor kid cried so hard when the Dr was messing with him I started tearing up. I felt so bad for him. Long story long, Dono got the glue and we were out of there after about 2 hours total. The Dr said not to really do anything to the site and that the glue would come off 7-10 days later. Wrong.

Sometime overnight Dono's head split back open. Aaaaahhhhh!!!! It is so frustrating because a) we subjected him to all those germs in the waiting room for nothing, b) we tortured him and messed up his schedule for nothing and c) now he is going to have a big scar. I should have gone with my gut and insisted on stitches but I am a rookie so I didn't but now I am kicking myself. We went and saw our pediatrician to see what he thought we should do next, whether it should be stitched or we should just leave it and he said once it opens up just leave it. Plus it is right at his hair line and he said as he grows it will grow into his hair. But still, frustrating!

Anyways that was unfortunately not the end of our doozie week, over night on monday/tues Tom started with the stomach bug (vomiting, diarrhea) and then at 7am I started too. It was awful! We were both laid up and pathetic and it would have been impossible to care for Donovan that day so like the angel she is, Tom's mom came and took Donovan for the day so Tom could recoup and I could continue getting sick. We both had to call in sick that day too. By the end of the day Tom was feeling his normal self but I was on knocked on my butt through wed. The other unfortunate thing was Wed was Tom's birthday and we had a babysitter (my sister) lined up and everything so that we could go to dinner and we had to cancel since I felt so bad still. Dono and I did manage to bake Tom a cake and Donovan helped me decorate it with sprinkles. And by help decorate I mean he ate the sprinkles and put his fingers in the icing. Here are the pictures of that after I had moved the cake out of arms reach.



Finally on Friday we got back to having fun and had a few friends and family over for Tom's birthday celebration. We kept it to small to close family and friends that we had already exposed our germy selves to in case we were still contagious. We had pizza, presents, cake and good company. Of course Ian man was there are we did manage to get some shots of the boys taking turns hugging each other. Too cute! And you will notice they were wearing matching jammies. Once we saw what they had brought for Ian to wear we couldn't help ourselves putting Donovan in his matching ones.





And that is what we have been doing this past week. I hope this next one is much less eventful!