More, Please and Thank You

Eban is getting so good at signing...it's incredible. He is always signing "more" and "please" and we occasionally get a thank you.

I got all the signs on video if you click the footage below...he really wanted apples after school today and he was running to the fridge to pick each apple out of a baggie.

Well, he got rave reviews on his dance skills again on his report card today. They said he was a dancing machine! Ahhh, we're such proud parents.

We also brought up a little baby structure (see picture) for Jack today. It's a colorful little play yard that the babies can lay under and be stimulated by the hanging plush items and the wild colors. Well, Eban loved sharing it with Jack and got under it with Jack and hung out for about an hour. And speaking of sharing, Eban is not good at this just yet. When Nani dropped him off at school, he grabbed three toys and other kids went to get them and he looked at all of them and said no while jerking the toys to the side.

When his friend Hayden came over the other day, Eban was just as good with "not sharing" that we stuck him in his "Jail" cell so he wouldn't yank toys out of Hayden's hands. And here's another interesting behavior Eban did when Hayden was over...he crawled. Eban hasn't crawled since he started walking 4 months ago and when Hayden showed up (he's almost 11 months), he resorted to crawling all over with Hayden. It was sometimes a race around the kitchen...check out the action shot! Anyway - It was sweet and since Hayden left, I haven't seen Eban crawl again.

This weekend, we are watching Jackson as we switched his formula to soy in hopes it will reduce his fussy behavior. We are also hoping it will help his cold which he's had for roughly three weeks. We'll see, but we are keeping our fingers crossed.

We can't rule out cancer

"We can't rule out cancer" were the exact words I heard yesterday at my doctor's appointment.

Yes, it's definitely unexpected. I went into my OB/GYN and this time I didn't bring the little jockey as the last time was too memorable. Well, this trip was just as memorable as my doctor came into my room and said she just got back from vacation and just saw the results of my pap smear from two weeks ago. She apologized and said it was quite irregular and that the lab ran more tests from the sample and it ruled out a ton of diseases but it couldn't rule out cancer.

She said she'd like to do a biopsy immediately but would be happy to re-schedule if I wanted Ryan there. I told her there was no time like the present, so we went into the other room for the procedure.

It's hard to share what was going through my head. Cancer? And my mom just had this type of cancer earlier in the year...what were the odds?

Well, they took four samples of my cervix and the procedure was less than fun. Each time they took a mini-M&M size piece of my cervix it felt like a sharp cramp. I kept pinching my shoulders so I would concentrate on anything else than what was happening. Anyway, the doctor told me she'd have results in about a week so she'd call me then.

Ahhh...now the wait. This is the bad part as one wants to immediately know what the outcome is.

Anyway...came home to play with Eban and rock Jackson. Eban is mimicking now so I have to be careful of what words come from my mouth. Eban also loves to sing and as you can see from one of the pictures, he is belting out some random tune that he created...those are the best songs ever!

Bath Fun and Cookies!

This weekend, Ryan and I recovered from being sick so I have nothing to report unless you want to hear about the woes of stomach issues?? I doubt that so I'll report what little there is to talk about...

Jackson is great for Nani, but terrible for me. He only slept two hours for me last night. My goodness, this lack of sleep thing does nothing for my looks or my morning personality...unless I have two LARGE cups of coffee! Anyway, I'm happy he is soothed by her but a tad jealous. More importantly, I'm happy he's happy, but I'd like to have "the touch" that Nani has as well as the grandmas. Eban is great with Jackson. He is very intrigued with him and wants to hug him or tackle him. You never know which so you have to keep a constant eye on him when he's near Jack.

In fact, last week, Dennis, our godson, pet Jackson on the head and over ran Eban and shoved Dennis. Little Dennis cried and got up, but Eban was very protective which I didn't think a 17 month old would be.

School is going great for Eban. Miss Brittney and Miss Emily love Eban and he gets great daily report cards. There are always comments about his swanky dance moves! I have no clue who he gets that from!?!

Today, we made Christmas cookies. That was a tiny adventure as we just completed the cutting and baking and decorating when Eban grabbed the parchment paper and was about to fling it when Nani and I were frantically holding down the paper so the cookies wouldn't fly all over the place. This was a fun game to Eban so he pulled harder and laughed harder. It was hard not to laugh...we eventually won with one cookie casualty. I'm sure Seamus was happy about that!

We had the "bad" kid at Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a blast at the Rehm household...as always.

There was more food than you could imagine and Jen's family, our family and a bunch of additional folks came to enjoy the turkey and the camaraderie. As you can see from the pictures, many people thoroughly enjoyed themselves and that's what Thanksgiving is about.

This year, the kids crazily ran around the joint. It was a first as Eban was very independent and chased the kids all over the house...I could barely keep up. Eventually, I gave up and stood in the hallway and waited to make sure he'd come running out when all the other wee ones did. It was new as I'm used to eating with everyone and now I'm watching kids and I'm lucky if I get enough food! Ahhh, what you forfeit when you have kids...all these things are so new to me. Late that night, someone yelled down the hall to me to ask me, "How was it being a hall monitor!" Funny, I thought...I wanted to yell back, "How is the dessert!" as I hadn't had any yet and that's one of my favorite parts of Turkey Day.

Anyway, occasionally Eban would get slammed behind a door as he doesn't know that's not a good place to stand when kids are running from room to room. He'd come crying to me and it took a two minute hug to settle him down and then off he'd go...back to the kiddie races.

As the night settled down, all the kids hopped into bed to watch a flick. As I finally had time to catch up with people, I heard a little girl voice say in a loud manner, "EBAN IS BEING MEAN!" Oh great. I have the mean kid at the party. Oh all things...I'm "that" kid's mom.

The little girl cried some more and then went back into the room to watch the movie. One of the big kids told me she stole the blanket Eban was resting under and that's when he shoved her. Nice.

We finally headed home around 8ish...which is early for us and when I made it home, I finally had dessert!

And in this last photo, check out how big Eban's teeth are becoming. It really is crazy how fast they grow.

OOhh, and Eban's vocabulary is increasing with the words popo (what nani calls poop), car, and papa. Nani and Ryan thought they heard him say Jack but it might have just been "ack".

Three missed phone calls from Nani

It's been a busy week with the arrival of Ryan's sisters, Deirdre and Caitlin, and the ongoing vomiting from Eban!

The girls arrived on Monday and they survived their first plane trip with only one infraction - a popped blood vessel in Deirdre's eye.

Tuesday, we took off and showed them downtown Denver, Washington Park, Cherry Creek and Red Rocks. We stopped and had coffee in Cherry Creek where Ryan almost got hit by a woman talking on her cell phone. The girls said they were an inch from being rammed. Eban and I were already in the coffee shop at that point.

We drove up to Morrison and ate lunch at the infamous Morrison Inn where flies flew around us the entire time. The girls were less than impressed. We drove up to see Red Rocks and tour the Visitor's Center where we saw the wall displaying our friend Liza's name as she played that venue two year's ago. Ryan played with her and we took a picture of it...see attached.

Eban did okay until after Red Rocks when he virtually lost in the entire ride back to Thornton. It's hard ignoring screaming babies while you're driving.

So last night, we got ready to leave for dinner downtown and we were thrilled to get to the Chop House and have a beautiful corner table. After I pulled out Ryan's phone from his jacket, I noticed three missed phone calls from Nani. Talk about being nervous in an instant! She told us that Eban had thrown up three times and that he wasn't lethargic, but that he was acting normal. She eventually put him to bed around 7:30ish but at that time, I was having a hard time enjoying dinner as I knew I had a sick kid at home...of ALL nights! How many times do we go out and this is what happens on the one rare occasion?!

So I zoomed home after dinner and helped clean up all the messes.

This morning we awoke to our first snow! Whoo-hoo! Seamus loves it. And then Eban threw up today during lunch so we'll see how this progresses throughout the week.

Mr. Grunty McGrunderson

Mr. Grunty McGrunderson (what a long nickname!) is about to move to the study. We love Jackson, but he's just so loud that we don't get any sleep. He grunts and groans the entire night and the next thing we know it's morning and we haven't gotten a decent hour's worth of shut eye.

We're going to try to give him bottled water mixed with formula to see if this strategy works and if not...off to the study he goes!

Eban has been doing a lot of art at school and I've taken a couple of pictures of the lovely things he has done. I hope you enjoy them...the brown one was from a potato that he dipped in paint and the apple is from apple slices. He did try to eat the apple with the paint on it and his teacher said he made a cute yucky face when he realized the apple didn't taste so good with paint on it.

Eban has been great at saying please and more in sign language. We hope more words will develop but we're not sure.

Locks of Love

I haven't had short hair in AGES and I finally look like a mom said Ryan!

For a couple of months now, I've been wanting to cut my hair and give it to Locks of Love for a little girl who has cancer. My hair has been way too long as the babies grab it and I get things caught in it as I'm racing around.

Both Ryan and Nani said I shouldn't do it as they are used to seeing me with long hair. Even Chris Vetrano said I shouldn't do it because I'll look old if I cut it.

Anyway, I feel guilty for not volunteering lately, but my life with the two boys, a husband and Nani have kept me so busy that the only way we help others is via a small check every once and a while. I really love the hands-on volunteer work that I have done and I miss it tremendously. So I hope in some small way, this helps and counts as volunteering...

Anyway, I have kept on thinking about a little girl who wants hair but can't grow it due to her chemo or radiation treatments. And when Chris came over for lunch today, I made him come with me to document the change! His mouth stayed open in a surprised fashion the entire time we were at the hair place as he couldn't believe I was doing it.

Hope I don't look too old, but I realize now that I'm going to have to learn how to "do" my hair as I don't really style it. I'm also going to have to buy products for my hair as I never use any. This will be a change, but I'm glad that some girl out there will be happy because she has a wig of my thick hair.

And check out how blue Jackson's eyes are becoming.

He is becoming more and more alert as the days pass. I hope you can see that in this picture his eyes are a deep blue...I'm sure they'll continue to change but it's really pretty right now.

6 week doctor's appointment

This morning after my first blog entry, Eban lovingly put a blue marker in the back pocket of my jeans. Thank goodness it was a washable marker as it bled through my pants.

I had my 6 week check up with Dr. Romy Mason (my doctor who ran into the delivery room just as Jackson's feet were flying out) and she said everything was fine.

But on a lighter note and a more in depth piece of that visit, please continue reading.

I brought Eban to the doctor's with me as Jackson has been fighting a mild cold. Eban was a delight until the doctor walked in. He saw Romy and started into hysterics. She said it may have been the white coat as the last time he saw that article of clothing he was getting stitches, so she may have been right.

So he is inconsolable and holding onto my neck for dear life. She said she could proceed with the exam anyway. I said okay not thinking a thing about it.

So the nurse who came into the room to play with Eban smiled at me and left listening to the roars of my little one. So Romy leans me back onto the table and I still have the death grip of my son hanging on to me while listening to the piercing screams. First comes the breast exam...so she has to shove Eban to one side and he's clinging on so tightly and yelling at the top of his lungs. UGH...what an awkward situation!! So then she goes to the other side and we have to lift him up to get a good exam. Whew...that was over and then to the "other" part.

So Eban finally gets comfy sitting on my stomach looking at me and he fails to notice that Romy is examing another area. Then he happily starts playing horsey on my stomach while at the same time I'm getting a pap smear! Come on...I kept thinking this isn't happening! He is playing "galloping" horsey and bouncing so high and coming back down SO HARD on my stomach. Romy is surpressing her laughs (I just know she was) and I couldn't have been in a more awkward situation. Eban continued playing horse on my stomach the entire time!

Then I hear her say...my goodness, you have a huge mole on your butt since the last time I saw you! I couldn't see her as my little jockey was in the way but I couldn't believe I had a mole on my butt. Of all places! Then she said, "wait a minute...it's big AND blue." I rolled my eyes and told her that it must be the blue marker that my son put in my back pocket this morning. So I guess it stained right on through to my rear end where I had the lovely opportunity to share it with my doctor. Does it ever end?!?

After we were through with everything, I got a clean bill of health and I thanked my son for being such a great accomplice on the excursion to the doctor's office.

Nani found all the stories to be highly entertaining when I returned. So here's a picture of her chatting with her instant messenger friends online...and this evening, Eban was reading the Toys R Us circular and loved it. Guess who's gearing up for Christmas?!!

Faces Faces and Faces

Lately, Eban has been learning how to make "faces." He has SO many expressions and I love every one of them - even the pouty face. I guess I could say Jackson is learning how to use his expressions as he's smiling more - he even has a crooked smile which I find endearing.

Yesterday, I put on jeans and make-up (that means it's a BIG day) and met Kayce and Morgan, her daughter who is Jackson's age, at the mall. It was great until 10 minutes after we arrived! Eban wanted to dip all his food into the salsa at Chili's. He would get angry if we took it away, so we gave him ketchup intstead. His attention span for lunch was 2 seconds so we'd attempt to distract him after every 10 seconds. Then Jackson woke up and wanted to eat...Nani fed him and then the people forgot to bring her food. The quick-serve Chili's wasn't exactly quick-serve. Kayce was a champ dealing with us and Morgan was a bigger champ as she slept through everything. I kept looking at Jackson and asking him why he couldn't be like Morgan and sleep soundly?! He didn't respond. :)

Eban has wanted to be a big boy and wants to drink out of a cup like we do. He takes his plastic cup and puts it up to the water dispenser in the fridge. He doesn't spill a lot which I find to be impressive. I can't believe he is already trying to use a real cup. Time really does go by way too fast.

Today, I'm making Helen Simon's brisket which calls for a half can of beer.

I had half a brain when I went to the store and accidentally picked up a can of Keystone Light. MY goodness...who cooks with crap beer! Hopefully no one will notice that the brisket has crappy beer in it. When I put the beer in the fridge last night, I shook my head and thought about the last time I bought Keystone Light and I know it was in college sometime. Brings back fond and not so fond memories!

And finally...our first short video of Jackson. He's not doing much but here you go anyway!