9 Month Update

So the weekly updates turned to monthly and now seem to be every 3 months. Oh well. I'm avoiding homework again.
Cameron's 9 month check up was yesterday and he is a giant. He is 20 lbs 8 oz and 31.5 inches, which is in the 96th percentile. I was curious and looked back at Brayden's chart, and he was about 2 lbs heavier and an inch taller at this age, but Cameron is definitely doing more. He is crawling, pulling up on furniture, giving high-5, and is very alert and all over the place. Yesterday he tried to stand up on his hands and feet on the kitchen floor and fell flat on his face. I'm sure he'll be walking by his 1st birthday. He has the most beautiful smile, the best laugh, and the biggest blue eyes, and he truly melts my heart. I love that little man.
I don't want to leave Brayden out. He is getting so smart. In the past month he has finally figured out how to play the Wii, and he can beat me at tennis and bowling if he really wants to. He has such a personality, and sometimes an attitude, but has the biggest heart and really just wants to be a good boy. We got his school portfolio to look at this week so we could decide if we wanted to do a conference or not. There was a note attached that they absolutely love having him in class and that he has such a willingness to learn. It's so nice to see that he is good for other people - now if I could just get him to be a perfect angel all the time...lol

Bedtime Prayers

Tonight we were saying bedtime prayers and this is somewhat how it went (I need to start recording what this kid says so I remember everything):
He first said his typical "Dear Jesus, thank you for my mom, thank you for my dad, and thank you for Cameron. Amen. Oh and I love you Jesus. Amen."
Last week in church they talked about the Phillipines and how the people there live in dangerous conditions, don't have clean water, etc., so we have been praying for them. Tonight we explained to Brayden that the kids there don't have toys to play with, and wouldn't he want to take some of the toys he doesn't play with anymore and send them to the kids there. He said, "No, I think I'll keep all of these toys." At first we were thinking that we had an extremely selfish child, but then he explained that he needed to keep his toys because they aren't "cool enough" for those kids so we should buy them new ones. Then he said that we should get them new houses and bring them to this town where it is not dangerous. Here is how the rest of the conversation with himself went:
"Hmm, but how would we get the house here? We could just build the house and pick it up and bring it here. But how would we carry it? I have an idea! A house truck! House trucks can fly. Well, maybe they can't, but helicopters can pick up things, so they can pick up house trucks! So we will build a house and put it on the house truck and the helicopter will bring it to this town and all the kids can live here and everyone will be safe"
If only it were that easy...

My Little Star

Brayden was "Star of the Week" at preschool this week!! Each day he got to bring something special to school to show the other kids. Monday he got to bring in pictures of himself to be put on the class bulletin board. Tuesday was his favorite book - he chose one that we read for the first time ever on Saturday night, but he loved it and said it was his new favorite (until next week). Wednesday he got to bring in a favorite CD or computer game. The only games we play are online (Webkinz, Disney.com, etc), and we don't really have a CD he listens to, so he took the Go Cubs Go song. Both of his teachers are die-hard Cardinals fans, so they absolutely loved having to smile and pretend to like it and not hurt his feelings :) Today he brought in his favorite toy, his remote control car that doesn't even work right.
Another fun part of being the Star is that he got to bring home the class monkey Bananas and take care of him this week. Brayden was so cute and did such a good job taking care of him. The other night we were walking into the garage in the dark and I heard him comforting Bananas and telling him that he would keep him safe. Soooo cute ;) He told me this morning on the way down the stairs and he was going to miss him so much. He has never really latched on to any of his stuffed animals - maybe we should get him a special one...
Here are some pictures of us at the park with Bananas yesterday.

Update/Procrastination

I'm supposed to be working on homework right now, so I decided it would be a good time to update the blog since I haven't been on here in a while.

Rubin: We finally think we have figured everything out!! Long story short, some of his medications were his biggest problem, he isn't taking them anymore and he feels great. We finally went to the specialist today and he gave us great news. According to him (and he is one of the best Crohn's doctors in the country), Rubin's prognosis looks great. His prediction is that he shouldn't have any more issues for at least 10 years or so. He gave him 4 things to do: stop taking his medication b/c it's not doing anything for him right now since he is in remission, get some sun (which I interpret as going on vacation to a beach somewhere, but Rubin disagrees), take a vitamin, and make sure he chews his food completely. SO, hopefully we continue to get great news and our lives can be normal again.
Brayden: is awesome! He is getting so big and thinks he knows everything. He constantly cracks me up and is so much fun. Quick story: the other night he wanted me to drive but Rubin was. Rather than deal with answering "why?" over and over, we told him that I didn't have my driver's license with me so I couldn't drive or the cops would give me a ticket. Well then we talked about his day at school, and a policeman had come that day to talk to his class. He was wearing a badge sticker, so I asked him if he was a police officer. He told me no, that he couldn't be because he didn't have a driver's license so he couldn't drive a police car or a fireman might give him a ticket. Anyway, not that funny now that I just wrote it, but we thought it was hilarious at the time. He is just too smart.
Cameron: is almost 8 months old and is getting more and more fun by the day. He says dada all the time, and only says mama in the form of a scream, so I don't think it really counts. He is laughing and smiling and ADORES his big brother. I have honestly been trying not to teach him to crawl because I like being able to put him down and know that he will still be sitting there when I get back, but those days are now officially over. He's not crawling, but is rolling all over the place.
Me: same ol' same ol' - working, going to school and being a mom
Okay so this is much longer than I anticipated - sorry. Really don't want to do this homework. I'll try and get on more often and then they can be shorter :)

Family

Just got home last night from a trip to Arkansas for my grandma's funeral. She passed away on Saturday after living a wonderful, very long life. She would have turned 92 this coming Monday. This woman raised 10 kids with tons of love and made the most beautiful quilts I have ever seen. She just made a very detailed cross-stitched baby blanket for Cameron when he was born and I am so lucky to have it. I think he is the last great-grandchild that she made one for. As hard as it was to lose my last grandparent, I sat there and watched my dad deal with losing his mom, and I can't imagine losing one of my parents. We knew this was coming, but no matter how "prepared" you are for it, or how old you are, it is never easy to lose a parent. It was so much harder to get on that plane yesterday to come back home after being with my family for a few days. I never want to take them for granted and hope they know how much I love and appreciate them. I truly am blessed and have the most amazing family in the world. I love spending time with them and saying good-bye is still so hard each time. I really wish I lived closer so I could see them more often. For now I guess Skype will have to do...
On another note, trying to teach a 4 year old about death is not easy. I started with telling him that great-grandma was up in heaven with Jesus, which he seemed okay with. Then we went to the funeral home and she was in the casket. He looked at me, spread his arms out, and asked, "Mommy, is this Jesus?". So confusing for a little kid...

I'm back...for now

It's been a while since I have posted - things have been crazy around here! What has happened since my last post...
We went to Arkansas for a week
Rubin started back to work
Took the boys to the Indiana Dunes
Took the boys downtown Chicago - train, Millenium Park, Navy Pier, water taxi
My sister went back to Arkansas
So You Think You Can Dance ended
Went shopping about a million times - twice to IKEA
Finished grad school class (got an A!)
Cam has grown like a foot! He's huge!
Cam has learned to sit up and has started trying to crawl

We have been keeping busy, and as much as I love the summer and miss my sister, I am ready to settle into a routine of some sort. Brayden starts preschool in 2 weeks, and I would LOVE to get our family on some sort of schedule between now and then. Right now I feel like we just do whatever, whenever. The next month or so of work is going to be insane, but because I'm working so many weekends I will have a few extra days off during the week and I'm looking forward to time with my boys!

A non-Crohn's update

So here is a normal update that doesn't include anything about hospitals or sickness...
On Thursday, my class was cancelled so Kaitlyn and I took the boys to Kiddieland. For those of you not around here, it is an amusement park built just for kids, so Brayden was tall enough (at 42") to ride every ride there, including the log ride, a roller coaster, and several typical fair/carnival rides. It is an old park and is pretty run down, but we had a great time. They have free drink stations throughout the park (unfortunately it's Pepsi and not Coke - good thing b/c I have a hard time spending money on Pepsi), which is nice because after 7 hours walking around that saves a ton of money. I had never been before, and now that I have gone I'm sad that they will be closing down at the end of this summer. It has been around since 1929. Crazy. Brayden wanted to ride everything, and here is how the situation went most times:
Standing in line while jumping up and down - "Mommy, I am so excite"
Once on the ride, just after it starts - "why is it going so slow? make it go faster!"
Once the ride started going faster - "Make it stop!!! I don't like it!! Stooooppppp!!! Pleeeeease!!!!!"
And although he was scared of most of the rides, it never stopped him from wanting to get on the next one. He is usually a little chicken, so I am super proud that he actually tried everything.

Then yesterday, we had a lazy morning at home and kept trying to decide what to do. We got our swimsuits on and went outside to set up the pool I bought over a month ago, and after about 2 hours it still is only about 1/4 of the way full. I guess we underestimated how much water it actually holds. We gave up on the swimming idea and decided to go get fireworks and just hang out at home for the night. We got a pack of the crappy legal fireworks we can get here, which consisted of about 4 varieties of smoke bombs, the stupid party popper things that you do on New Years Eve, and the popper things you throw on the ground. We thought they were lame, but Brayden seemed to like them. We also made s'mores over the fire pit (that I bought last night) and set up Brayden's tent so he could "go camping". He had actually convinced Rubin to sleep in the tent with him, but then he chickened out when the neighbors started shooting bottle rockets towards our house. He ended up coming in and going to bed (and then woke up this morning, looked outside and said "but I wanted to sleep in the tent mommy!", as if we made him go inside). We had a great night just hanging out in the backyard together. We should do it more often!!