Aw Geez...

So I'm doing a March of Dimes walk tomorrow and I'm really excited about it. However, I thought I'd try and raise $100 but have only raised $5. Embarrassing right? So if anyone is PLEASE PLEASE feeling generous, click on the huge pink March of Dimes icon on the left hand side and donate a couple bucks. THANK YOU!

Lament of a Bruiser's Mother

Beautiful isn't he? We were out and about all weekend long, which means my house didn't get dirty and I didn't have to clean it today. So I had some free time to play on picnik.com with this photo.

I'm so greatful that my little baby only has moderate Hemophilia B. It could be so much worse, like Hemophilia A or severe Hemophilia or most anything else. I have him and can hold his tininess in my arms and adore his little smiles and rolls. I get to be frustrated if he doesn't feel like going to bed at night (or early morning.)

But that doesn't mean I don't worry about him. He was born with a little hemangeoma on his leg. I probably spelled that all wrong, but it's just a small strawberry that should go away. A couple weeks later, I noticed at the doctor's office that he had a large bruise covering his entire shoulder and part of his tiny back. It hasn't gotten bigger and hasn't gone away, so the Hemo doc said it's probably a birthmark. Then yesterday, he was sitting on my lap and I saw a bruise on the nape of his neck that went up about two inches! To add insult to injury, my parents said they had noticed it two weeks ago. Where was I? Why didn't I see it as anything other than a shadow up until last night? I felt horrified!

Because of his type of Hemophilia, I really only need to worry about bleeds in the muscles and joints, not silly surface bruises which my father kindly reminded me so I didn't freak out too badly. (I can't believe I didn't notice!?) They went through this with my accident prone brother- sorry bro, but you know neither one of us could ever be mistaken as graceful. So my parents knew it was no big deal.

So where is the line? I want to not have a panic attack every time his beautiful baby skin gets discolored. I want to NOTICE is something is amiss so I can calmly and efficiently react. And I want to not worry about him playing with his big brother who seems to so far have inherited our "ungraceful genes". (He's a toddler. There's still hope for him.) Monk loves to play with him so much and I don't want to yell at him everytime he gets to close. Geez.... I could vent forever. I guess all I can do is my best. And accept that I'm just going to worry. Sometimes I'll over react and I'll make mistakes. Which stinks.

I really want to join a chat room or forum for moms with children who have Hemophilia, but I haven't really found one. Anybody know of one? Then maybe I can get my freak outs out one at a time instead of all at once.

First Cereal Box Toy!

Come on, you know that's exciting. Which one of us didn't try to get our mom to buy cereal based on the toy. I never look anymore, but imagine my surprise when my Monk one morning shouts, "Mom-Mom! A car! A car!" He was so excited. I mean, look at that little face.

WICKED

Did I mention my hot husband took me to see WICKED? It was AWESOME. We dropped my boys off with my parents and went to get some sushi with our best man Nick.
















Everyone I know who has seen it RAVES about WICKED and how incredible is. They've all seen it several times. I've never heard of anyone who didn't like it! It was incredibly witty and clever and the music was so fun and we just really enjoyed ourselves.


My favorite scene:
What a moment! As a theatre person Icould just imagine what it felt like to be up there and singing with everything you got. It was incredible!



My husbands's favorite: No clue why. He is what he is! But he really liked the song "Popular".

How to Train your Dragon

I really love that we can take my little boy to the movies. There's a cheap theatre very close to us so for less than $15 the three of us get in and get a drink and popcorn. Since Monk loves dinosaurs and dragons we thought How to Train your Dragon would be perfect! And it really was. Except that he almost all the popcorn. The movie was adorable. Monk didn't say anything the whole movie and was so into it. I love how he insisted on sitting in his ownseat, but he didn't weigh enough so it was more like a lounger for him. My sweet boy!

4 Months and Where have we been???

So we really haven't been THAT busy, but it sure feels like it. I have a bunch of posts to put up this week but I'll start with my little Bruiser being 4 months old... 2 weeks ago...

I started him out on some cereal and it definitely did not agree with him. He had a stomache ache all week long so I took him off figuring that was the problem. We'll try again in a couple weeks to see if he's ready for it then. That time I'll put a tiny bit in his bottle instead of spoon feeding him so it's a more gradual thing.



Bruiser is still such a happy little guy. Jolly almost. He weighed 13.5 lbs his last dr.s visit. He's very different from his brother the older he gets. He's very quiet and likes to talk in spurts. But when he talks he really has something to say and will squeal and yammer for a good long while. He can roll side to side but doesn't roll over quite yet, which I'm perfectly happy about. I don't get those moms who are anxious for their child to do everything early. "My baby walked at such and such months..." That's nice, really, but I'll be happy if he waits until he's after a year.

Bruiser also really likes to grab onto his feet and hold him. That's when he does a majority of his side to sideness. It's very precious. I can let him play alone for a long time or put him in jumper with toys and he has a lot of fun. He likes to be held but doesn't often demand him. I wear him an awful lot with my wrap which is good because we're close and sometimes almost bad because I forget that he's there he's so quiet and it's so comfortable.



He and Monk adore each other. Monk can't wait for Bruiser to get up every morning so he can kiss him. They like to play in the crib and Bruiser just looks up and smiles and at all the crazy things Monkey puts out. Monk is such a goof ball.

What can I say? I love these boys o mine!

There are two sides to every story...

There are two sides to every story...

For the Love of BOYS

Oh everyday they make me laugh and make my life so happy. Here's a little peek of some of the things they do (mostly Monkey).

1. Potty training is always good for a laugh. As I put little Monk up on the potty I reminded him to "point down". So he says, "Yeah, dont want to pee on mommy!"

2. "Hold Mommy" said my little Monk and I pull him on my lap but he headbutts me in the cheek and we fall over. "Fine Mom-mom?" "No, I'm not ok. I think it needs a kiss." . "Thank you. How's my Monkey?" "I need kiss too." . "Oh, you fine mom-mom." Def. What an angel.



3. My little Bruiser is already the happiest baby I've ever seen. He's also one of the most ticklish. My favorite is when I'm changing his diaper and he starts laughing randomly. It's such a deep hard chuckle!

4. Monk making a sand castle out of my frosting cans.

5. Monk being convinced there's a monster in the toilet when he heard it running. He's not afraid of monsters. He likes to hunt them with his flashlight.

6. Although it started out as a way to get payback to my husband for hacking into my facebook and starting a farmville account, now it's fun to sit next to each other at night miessing around with our farms.

7. Monk got out of bed and I heard him in Bruiser's room. So I got up and found him sitting cross-legged in the crib right next to the baby talking and talking to him. What else was sweet was that Bruiser was just looking up at him smiling and cooing and totally adoring his older brother. Love my boys!

Don't Be Afraid to Call

So when we first told people we were going to have our little Bruiser, my mother-in-law bought us a super cute swaddling blanket. I love these little swaddling blankets because I never get regular blankets to stay put when I swaddle them.

So I put this cute little swaddler on my boy, and the straps slipped up! Which means that they were above his shoulders and around his tiny little neck! One quick freakout and making sure he was still breathing and the next morning I look up the company's info from the tag on the blanket so I can complain. It's not so much that I want to raise a big fuss, but more that I want to make them aware of the problem. A lot of times, they're small companies that take the input into future designs so it doesn't happen to anyone else.

I left a message this morning and this afternoon a girl called me back. She seemed surprised and said that maybe my swaddler was too big and that's why it was slipping so she offered to send me a smaller one. "No," I respond ever so politely. It's not like getting a bad haircut and you let them go back and fix it. I don't want another product. Because what if it wasn't that it didn't fit? Why would I risk that with my baby? So she totally understood and was so sweet and is going to issue me a check!

I totally wasn't expecting that and didn't ask for it so I was pleasantly surprised she didn't just offer store credit. I appreciate it when companies like that take moms seriously and don't give us the run around. Anyway, even though I was unhappy with my swaddler, they have a lot of cute things in their on-line store that are baby-friendly. See what a little good customer service will do? I appreciate people I can work with: www.gomamagodesigns.com

Did I Forget That He's 3 Months??

I like doing these month to month posts about how Bruiser's changing. Mostly, it's because I'm behind on scrapbooking so I can just copy and paste what I type in. Anyway, my little boy is 3 months old!

I can honestly say that I have never seen a happier or sweeter baby. He wakes up with smiles and dimples and coos. He loves to be laid on his back so he can kick and rock sideways. If I'm holding him, he can propel himself to a sit up position, but he can't keep himself there of course. He has the brightest eyes and the longest lashes. He's also quite the cuddler, making him the perfect baby. He lights up whenever Monk leans over him and tries to play with him and he follows Daddy with his eyes EVERYWHERE. He's such a daddy's boy. Jealous.



At his last dr's appt, he was 12.5 pounds, so I'm assuming he's around 13lbs or so now. Bruiser sleeps an awful lot and snores just a little bit. He's not a huge eater or anything. I felt at this stage with Monkey that I'd run out of milk, but Bruiser just goes in spurts. He's so laid back, which really is wonderful to have two like that. We're so blessed to have him.

The new Hemo doc found a place that would give us Factor to have on hand. They had it here NEXT DAY! Toledo never got around to that at all which confirms how wonderful these new people are. I believe the factor company is called BioRX. They're super sweet and said that they have children with hemophilia, so if I ever just need to talk or ask, they've been there. They also have a program to help train the local EMT's in giving Factor injections because with a bleeder, you have to inject him a certain way or else you could give him a muscle bleed! I'll be happy to learn all this stuff. The nice thing is though, that if Bruiser ever gets a bleed, we can take him to the local ER with our own factor since the local hospitals won't keep it on hand for us. That way we don't have to travel all the way to CBus.

So things are happy! We're so in love with our boys and every day they do something that makes us fall and fall and fall. We're so blessed!