Seashells

If I think about it hard enough, I can still smell the salty ocean air, and it fills my soul. The beaches of the gulf coast of Texas, where some of my earliest memories were formed, will forever be a part of me. Every summer my family would gather in Port Aransas, Texas. Port Aransas isn’t a picturesque island getaway, but it was enough for us.

We didn’t need crystal clear waters; we loved the mystery of walking out into the murky ocean, delicately stepping so as not to step on crabs, shells, or bits of tar. Do they have tar in the oceans of Tahiti? Maybe not, but it didn’t bother us. 

We didn't need perfectly formed waves for surfing; we loved attempting (and usually failing) to catch a wave on our boogie boards. 

We didn’t need whale watching excursions; the sight of dolphin fins trailing behind us on the ferry was thrilling, the perfect way to begin and end our trips to and from Mustang Island.

We didn’t need designer swim suits; the multitude of cheap t-shirt and souvenir shops was more than sufficient for our casual beachwear needs.

Sandcastles, swing sets, sunburns, seashells, sand dollars. It was our paradise.

Summer is here. My boys will be forming their lifelong memories. We may not have beaches here in Denver, but hopefully soon we can give them some coastal memories too. This summer, we will fill their souls with fresh mountain air, bike rides through the park, walks through the zoo, and bug searches in the backyard. It may not be perfect, but this life is ours, and it is enough.

Heiko says:

"Theodor, Theodor.  Theo's not a door.  A door goes 'wonk' and open!"

"That looks a pteranodon with his mighty wings."

H- "Mommy, what's your name?"
Mom- "Brittany. What's YOUR name?"
H- "Heikodor. My name is Heikodor."

"When I was a grown up I used to drink beer!"

"I have a tummy ache.  When we get home I can only eat snacks and watch shows.  I can't do tricks or dance moves."

"Hey Mommy, nothing is yummier than cereal."

"Mom, when I grow up I'm gonna be inside the TV and you're gonna watch me."

"When I grow up I'm gonna be a van driver.

Theo is 1 and a half!

Theo's half birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and oh boy is he a full fledged toddler! This child is something else. He is so crazy smart and curious, and so crazy stubborn and wild.

He talks non-stop; he went through a major developmental phase with his speech (over the last month or so) where all of a sudden he started speaking in phrases and saying anything and everything.

He runs. We have a runner. I'm not talking runs chasing after a ball in the yard, or runs to try to catch a butterfly. I'm talking runs full speed down the hospital corridor while his mother desperately tries to check in for his eye appointment. I'm talking runs out of the restaurant and almost into the street. I'm talking bolts down the sidewalk when it's time to get in the car to go to school in the morning. This kid. Runs. And. Doesn't. Stop. And looks behind at whoever is chasing him, laughing hysterically.

If you try to keep him from running, or catch him in the act of running, he turns terrorist on you. Kicking. Screaming. Clawing at your eye balls. He also pulls the terrorist moves if he doesn't get the toy he wants, has to go inside, has to get in the car, doesn't get to climb into the lion habitat at the zoo, doesn't get to electrocute himself, or doesn't get to destroy the eye doctor's expensive medical equipment. It's so catastrophic, he can't even deal.

When he is not exhibiting terrorism, our Theo is so precious he is almost edible. He loves hugs, saying "hi" and "bye" to random people, digging in the sand, climbing, and doing literally everything his big brother does. He is still our sweet chubby pumpkin at 30lbs 1oz in the 97th percentile, and in the 95th for height and head circumference. He eats everything except tomatoes.

We sure do love this boy. And we hope he becomes a reformed terrorist soon.

Hello Blog!

I should be grading papers, but instead I'm going to post an update on our poor, neglected little blog.

Spring is coming, I can feel it!  We are staying healthy for longer periods of time, it is gorgeous outside, and we are having lots and lots of fun.  Hopefully Spring doesn't deceive us like it did last year with record snow totals in April.  Let's just cruise right into summer, shall we?

Perhaps I'm a bit more anxious for summer this year because my time at my current school is coming to an end, and I will get a new beginning at a new school next year!  I am so excited for this change and feel so lucky to have been chosen for my new position.  It was an arduous application process, (ask me about it sometime) but I made it and I can't wait to start!  But first, summer.  A long one this year since my current district's calendar ends early, and my new district's calendar starts late.  =)  And at the end of the summer, Heiko will begin ECE (Early Childhood Education... what our city calls Pre-K) in the public school system, so he will have a new beginning too.  The program at my new school is only a half day program, and with Denver's school choice system we have no idea where he will be placed yet, but ideally he can come to my new school with me and to daycare for the second half of the day.  We'll see what happens.  Change is good!

Speaking of changes, our little Theodor is a full fledged toddler now.  He is talking up a storm.  Way too many words to count, if I had to guess I'd say around 80?  And a couple of phrases that involve Jonas' possessions, "Daddy trash", "Daddy milk", etc.  He's taken up professional climbing.  He is using utensils to eat.  It's crazy and bittersweet and wonderful and fun.  He has the most charming little personality, he can make a friend out of anyone.  And at the same time, he can turn into the most insane little gremlin you've ever seen.  Tantrums, screaming, etc., when he doesn't get what he wants.  So, he probably gets what he wants too often... it's a survival mechanism for us, self-preservation at it's finest.  But oh is he smart and sweet and precious.  We won't talk about the sleeping.  He is also still nursing, just about once a day on average.  We just went four days without it because he wasn't asking for it, but yesterday he did a few times.  So we will see, I plan to ride it out as long as he still wants to and it gives him comfort, but we might be nearing the end.  Also very bittersweet.

Okay, I guess I'll get to my grading now.

Theo says:

Theo is becoming quite the talker!  He babbles a lot more than Heiko did, but he has a good bank of words that he uses now too... close to 30!  =)

Mama
Daddy
up
down
bottle
ball
uh-oh
no
bye bye
hi
Anna (from the movie Frozen... brainwashed by Heiko)
Elmo
monkey
help
patch
pop
diaper
stuck
baby
milk
backpack
walk
owie
duck
hat
more
helmet

Health updates

December really threw us for a loop! Hopefully this new month (and new year!) treats us a bit better. I'll start with Theo, since he has had quite a few struggles in his short little life so far. As most of you know, he had a urological surgery in July, at 9 months old. His recovery and follow up appointments went smoothly for the most part, and his surgeon told us we wouldn't have to do anything further, the issue was corrected! Hooray!

Unfortunately, at the beginning of December we discovered he had a hernia. It is not dangerous at this point, but he will need to have surgery to fix it around 2 years old. It's a fairly common procedure, but we don't love that our little baby will have to go under anesthesia again.

The week before winter break, both boys came down with a respiratory virus. They came down with fevers that Monday afternoon, and Theo went downhill fast. He had very labored breathing, wheezing, coughing, the whole nine yards. We had to take him to the ER at Children's Hospital. First, they used a vacuum suction up his nose and down his throat to clear him out, which was so so sad and scary. They took a chest x-ray which showed he did not have pneumonia (phew!), but they did find that his oxygen saturation percentage dropped when he fell asleep. So, they put him on oxygen and monitored him overnight. He HATED everything about being on oxygen. Thank goodness he is still nursing, that is the only way I was able to calm him down enough to keep the oxygen in. Even with the soothing nature of nursing, he woke constantly all night long and grabbed and yanked at the tubes every time... we would have to hold him down to fix all the tubes until he nursed again and calmed down and fell back asleep. It was probably the hardest night of my life aside from the night I was in false labor with Heiko. We were finally discharged after about 12 hours, and were sent home with oxygen. We kept him on it as much as we could the next day, but it was near impossible. He is at an age where he is super active, super stubborn, and isn't developmentally ready to be reasoned with. Luckily on the third day at a follow-up appointment with one of our pediatricians, we got to switch to only giving oxygen at night. That was still a challenge, but he was much more accepting of it at night. Then at the end of the week, after we had been closely monitoring his levels all week, taking readings both awake and asleep, we finally got to stop it altogether.

At Theo's first follow-up appointment, we actually took Heiko in to be seen too because he was on day 3 of fevers which were climbing each day. The doctor didn't like what he saw or what he heard in Heiko's chest, so we were sent back to the hospital for a chest x-ray for him! And, not to be outdone by his little brother, Heiko was diagnosed with pneumonia. He started an antibiotic right away, and recovered pretty quickly, but neither of them could go back to school all week. It was a crazy tough week, but at least it didn't happen over Christmas!

Finally, we noticed quite a few months ago that Theo's right eye was weaker than his left. He has a condition called amblyopia; his brain is favoring the left eye when focusing on something in the distance. In the last couple of months we have noticed a decline in the strength of the right eye, which the ophthalmologist found concerning as well. So we have begun the exciting process of patching Theo's stronger eye for two hours every day in order to attempt to strengthen the weak eye.  This strategy only works in about 5-10% of cases.  We will patch for two months, then keep him patch-free for a month, then return to the doctor to see if there are any lasting improvements.  If so, we will continue patching trials and continue to evaluate the success of the trials.  If not, he will have surgery to correct it as soon as possible.  Without correction of this condition, he could eventually lose vision in the right eye altogether.  For those of you who haven't been counting, that's a THIRD surgery.  Ugh.  We hope that we could possibly have our doctors coordinate to do both surgeries at the same time so he's only going under once (two birds with one stone)...

BUT we are crossing all our fingers and toes that our little fighter is in that 5-10% that patching works for!  And the first step is actually successfully and consistently patching him, which has gone amazingly well so far!  With the vigor in which he tried ripping the oxygen tubes off his face a couple weeks ago, we thought for sure he would never allow us to put the patches on.  But our little sweetie pie actually LIKES his patches!  It is the strangest thing.  He doesn't even flinch when we put it on him, and if you mention his patches he says "patch!" and runs to his room to look at his patching chart with all his old/used patches.  Hopefully we can keep his excitement level up about it over these next two months!

It was sure a busy month, but everyone is happy and well now!  Phew!  Here are some pictures of our two little troopers!

Our little cyclist!

Heiko started riding his balance bike right around his 2nd birthday, and this past summer (at about 2 and 1/2) he surprised us by riding a pedal bike the first time he tried it!  Who needs training wheels?!  =)

Here are a few videos of our little biker.

Heiko learns to ride a pedal bike, 2.5 years old from BP on Vimeo.

Against the Wind from BP on Vimeo.

Bicycle from BP on Vimeo.