the dog did it

wash your hands

"Wash your hands for dinner, dude..."

I guess it's more convenient than standing on a stool at the sink.

By the way, he dried his hands on mommy's purse instead of a towel.

I was taking a video of the dude laughing at the dryer and caught him at the exact moment he broke the dryer!  Grrrrreat.

linus

The dude has a blankie that he insists on cuddling with, even in the car, even when it's 100 degrees outside.  I understand that it's a thick, really soft, snuggly blankie, but no matter how hot it is, he MUST have blankie in the car.  He recenly brought blankie inside and has been dragging it around like Linus from Peanuts.

See what I mean....

fishy face

Hubs and I drove 2 hours today to take the dude to meet his new Speech Language Pathologist who will be providing therapy for both feeding and speech/language.  This visit concentrated on dude's feeding issues and she'll address his speech delays at the next visit.  It was a very informative session and she gave us lots of tips to use at home.  She also told us that feeding difficulties and speech delays go hand-in-hand, but she has all confidences that the dude will catch up.  She even got the dude to take a few sips of Pediasure from a straw (and that's no small feat)!  Oh, she also told me that letting the dude blow bubbles into his cup (as seen in the video in this post) is a huge "no-no" and that we have to break that habit immediately. 

I'm looking forward to our next session and getting insight on his speech delays.  Looks like we'll continue to rely on signing for now as it helps him "tell" us his needs and thus, reduces the number and severity of tantrums.  Right now, he has about 10 spoken words and about 10 signs.  If you ask him to say a word that he can't say his response is "mama."  It goes something like this, and it always makes me chuckle:

Mommy:  "say bath"

Dude:  "bath"

Mommy:  "say LaLa"

Dude:  "yaya"

Mommy:  "say chair"

Dude:  "mama"

Mommy:  "say cup"

Dude:  "mama"

Mommy:  "say up"

Dude:  "uh mama"

Yep, the dude is a mama's boy!

The dude loves to ride in the car (now that he is forward-facing) and he usually laughs, makes faces and dances from the back seat.  He certainly provides the entertainment for a long trip.  On our way home from the appointment today, I caught him making "fishy faces" and laughing.  After looking at the pics, I thought I remembered a photo of myself with a similar "fishy face."  What do you think--does he have mommy's fishy face perfected?

the mommy as a little one

i just called to say i love you

{this post written by the mommy}

Yesterday, we discovered just how much we rely on our cell phones when AT&T experienced a day-long outage.  We do not have a land line in the house, but we do have a fax line.  Once I realized that I'd have no connection to the outside world, I dug around in some boxes in the attic to find a phone with a cord.  I (literally) blew the dust off of it and plugged it in into the fax line.  The dude was watching my every move, as always, and stared down the phone.  I could just see him thinking "what is that thing-a-ma-bobber?"  The dude knows how to use my Blackberry, even down to the scroll ball, but he didn't know what to do with a regular phone!  Knowing that naa-naad [granddad] was home, I showed the dude how to dial a number (I'm impressed that I remembered the number without speed dial) and held the receiver up to his ear.  He looked at me as if I'd put a monster near his head.  Then, naa-naad answered the phone and started talking to the dude and he realized that the thing-a-ma-bobber was pretty neat!  After a conversation with naa-naad, we hung up and I kinda forgot all about the phone after we got cell service back.  Until this morning, when I walked in to find this.....

I have no idea how many numbers he pushed or if he called anyone.  I guess we'll find out when we get the bill!

The dude has had a long-standing "issue" with eating.  After spending so long in the NICU and suffering from severe reflux, he lost the skills to eat.  He had an NG tube for the first year of life and has been going to therapy several times a week for almost two years for feeding therapy.  

This is the dude "eating" - we used a pump to administer formula through the tube in his nose, down into his stomach.

A close up of the tube

I don't even know how to describe just how difficult it has been to teach him that eating is fun and that it doesn't hurt (no thanks to the reflux and puking).  We've spent many hours, thrown our own tantrums, and traveled thousands of miles to see different specialists, all to help the dude.  It's still a constant battle with him, but it is getting so much better.  We are just getting to the point where we can all sit down at the table and eat.  And it's truly amazing.  So, when I'm able to capture a picture like this, it's something to celebrate!  

Super Dude's favorite thing to do with a cup and straw ~ bubbles!!!

[if you can't hear the video, make sure the video isn't muted]

silly dude

Just a few videos to share some of the dude's sillies.

kisses

help

don't rain on my parade

A few weeks ago, naa-naad [granddad] and gamma came over for a play date while mommy and daddy went out to dinner.  I don't know why they didn't take me, but I thought they'd never leave!  I have naa-naad and gamma all figured out and I couldn't wait to play them, err...I mean, play with them -- they let me do everything that mommy and daddy don't AND they don't put me in time out.  All I have to do is grin and giggle and I've bought myself a ticket to get out of jail for free.

I have a little dump truck that nana [daddy's mommy] got me for Christmas and it holds some of my blocks.  It didn't take long to trick that silly gamma into pulling me around the house in the truck.  Round and round and round.  My naa-naad is always worrying and was telling gamma to "be careful" but I giggled and smiled so she'd go faster!

Well, mommy and daddy don't like for me to climb into the truck and try to take myself for a spin.  Something about falling and getting hurt.  Whatever.  I finally convinced mommy to take me for a spin around the house in the dump truck and it turned into quite a parade with LaLa following behind.  It was so much fun that when mommy put the truck away in my room, I sneaked in there and tried to climb into it all by myself (I am a big boy now, you know).  But, I got stuck.  One leg in, one leg out, booty up in the air.  I tried to figure out a way out of it before mommy and daddy saw me and said "I told you so" but I finally had to call for help.  Oh well.  I'll try again another day!

Daddy took the video below.

who knew a box could be so much fun?

Earlier this week, mommy ordered some new baskets for my toys.  (Shhhh...don't tell her, but I certainly don't plan on actually keeping my toys IN the baskets.  What fun is that?!?!)  The guy in the big brown truck brought the baskets in a huge box, so today she turned the box over and told me to crawl inside.  At first, I thought she might be trying to mail me to Titi's or Ginny's house, but my curiosity got the best of me and inside I went.  Wowie, it was so much fun in there!  I had two sets of doors to open and close and I could knock on the sides.  As many of you know, I looooove to hide from mommy and daddy and this box was just right for me and monkey.  I figured out how to peek of the box and then the best thing in the whole world happened....mommy said the magic words: COLOR & STICKERS!  I ran to the marker box and pulled out my very favorite color (black), plus stickers that my buddy Davis sent me.  As you can see, the mommarazzi got out her camera and started snapping pictures.  She and daddy kept saying something about adding cardboard boxes to my Christmas wish list.  Lala didn't like the box--I think she thought it was going to eat her or something, but that's ok because there wasn't really enough room for her in there.

Enjoy the pictures and be sure to watch the video at the very end!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I'm baaaaaack!

Whew!  I thought Mommy and Daddy were never going to let me get back to blogging.  I've missed y'all (that's some Southern drawl that Mommy and Daddy use to say "you all") and I'm excited to get back to sharing my adventures.

LaLa and I have had a busy summer.  I have figured out where her treats are located, so I'll grab a treat, pretend to give it to her and just before she takes it from me, I take off running and laughing.  That dog is so silly--she chases me round and round the dining room table.  When she starts to lose interest, I pretend to give her the treat and then take off running again.  Sometimes, I even hide in the curtains, but she always finds me and licks my face.  Eventually, Mommy or Daddy stop me and make me give LaLa the treat.  This makes me SO mad that I stomp my feet and tell them "No! No! No!" but they don't listen.

I love to go outside and play with LaLa and now that it's so hot out there, we share the water spigot (I also share popsicles with her).  The first time I bent over to drink from LaLa's spigot, Mommy started laughing so hard that I thought she was going to pee-pee in her pants (I hope she was wearing a diaper).  Daddy didn't think it was very funny and tells me that it's yucky but I don't think it's yucky.  If LaLa drinks from it, why can't I?

Mommy and Daddy have been taking me to all kinds of fun places this summer and I'll share those adventures with you soon.

I have to go now because it's nap time and I do love my naps.  Mommy says I get that from her!