Zane's Third Heart Birthday

This morning, unlike the past two years on Zane's heart birthday, I woke up and went about the day without replaying the morning of Zane's surgery all morning. This morning we got up and got dressed up for Boo at the Zoo. Zane was a cowboy and Rowan was a little horsey. The boys could not be cuter and Zane was over the moon excited about being a cowboy and getting to go to the zoo. After the photo shoot with the boys we loaded all our gear and headed off to meet the Wamser clan at the zoo.

 And of course this happened and we didn't stop it, until after the pictures were taken.

About half way there I looked at the clock and it was 8:30 A.M. It occurred to me that three years ago, at that time Zane's heart wasn't beating. Of course I immediately burst into tears, looking back at my big three year old boy, dressed up in his cowboy hat, pearl snaps, cowboy vest, jeans, and boots. He is big and strong, terribly independent, very smart, wonderfully loving, and completely oblivious to all that he went through. He knows that he has a "stripe", he knows that his heart was/is "broken," and he knows that every year we celebrate the miracle that is his life, on his Heart Birthday. This is what I know, Zane's heart didn't beat for five hours, his little life could have ended early if we weren't so very blessed, and I know that I will always celebrate his life on this day, his heart birthday.

Today was a wonderful day. We had an absolute blast at Boo at the Zoo. We got there early, so as to beat the insane crowds that were forming when we left. There were random vendors up and down the hill handing out candy, but after our trip through the Trick or Treating line, we went through Rivers Edge, where all the animals were actually out. We saw the Rhino, who was very riled up, the hippos were actually moving, fighting/playing with each other, the cheetah was bathing in the sun, the hyena's were out napping, and the elephants were playing by the water. As my mom can attest, this NEVER happens in River's Edge. It was beautiful fall weather, perfect for our last train ride through the STL Zoo. I got a little teary eyed on the train, thinking about the numerous times I had have ridden that train with Zane, alone, with Zach, with Mom, with numerous different friends, and it is full of fond memories. Turns out I left my wipes container on the train for it to remember me by. The topper on our Zoo day was when the train went behind the elephant exhibit, we got to see the entire family of elephants, including the new little baby! Perfect!

Jamey was Buzz Lightyear and his little sister Ruthie was Jessie, so cute.

 Best Buds!

 Of course Zane had to say good bye to his beloved snakes.

We ate lunch at one of our favorite STL restaurants, Rigazzi's, ate some STL toasted Ravioli, and had a wonderful heart birthday celebration with the Wamser's. Lots of laughs, leaving a little teary eyed at the thought of not seeing them for awhile and missing little Jamey and Ruthie whom I adore. Many thanks to Michelle and Ryan for celebrating with us, we will miss you and your children dearly!!

This afternoon Grammi and Papa were in town and got to take part in the evening heart birthday festivities. This year they included store bought cupcakes instead of our usual heart cake, since that cake pan has been packed for weeks. This year's presents were a Spiderman bag, perfect for our travels next week, and some kid friendly knives, which will be put to use at Grandma's, where we are sure to be doing lots of cooking soon.

Love this boy!!! Happy Heart Birthday little man!

Ten On Tuesday

1. Today was rough. Lots of questioning what the hell we are doing and lots of stress over everything happening so quickly. We can't control so much of what is happening, i.e. when our house sells, and it is driving us insane. I don't like being unorganized and living without some sort of plan in place, but none of that is possible currently. I feel confident we made the right decision, but it seems like it is going to take quite a bit of time to get everything settled and I hate it.

2. Making today worse was the fact that the boys had to go to daycare since there was going to be an agent open house here during their nap time and I had lots of errands to run. Errands without the boys seem terribly lonely and depressing now. The thought of a Target trip alone use to seem like such a vacation, but today all my shopping seemed sad and lonely without my smiling boys to keep me company. Which brings me back to the question I ask so frequently, what did I do before I had kids?

3. So I left a few details out of yesterdays update on Rowan. First of all he is officially cruising as of today. He cruised from the couch to the coffee table and back on Zach's leg this evening and in between plastic storage containers downstairs. Also, we have officially entered the not so fun stage where he gets into everything, is easily lost, and with all this cruising and investigating comes a lot of falling and head bonks. As we like to say in the pediatric nursing world "when you cruise, you bruise."

Yeah I remember this phase, it's rough.

4.Yesterday marked a huge day in Zane's life. A little back story. When Grandma came up to watch the boys she brought Curious George's Halloween DVD. Since then Zane has been completely obsessed with Curious George. He pretends to be Curious George all day, Zach and I are Yellow Hat, and he gets very angry when we don't refer to him as Curious George while he is pretending to be him. Jump forward to yesterday at the resale shop. I was looking for baby Cardinals clothes when I hear Zane scream bloody murder from across the store, "Mom, it Curious George." Best day of his life, eight dollars later he was the proud owner of this, amazing costume.

This has led to endless entertainment and many more fights over me not calling him Curious George all the time. I told him he could be Curious George for Halloween and he told me next year he would be Curious George, but this year he was going to be a cowboy. Fair enough!

5. After lots of shopping and dropping unnecessary amounts of cash, we are all fully prepared for the Cardinals World Series run. Both boys now have shirts and I have an STL hoodie at long last. I'm fully prepared to buy everybody World Series Champion shirts next week after they win their 12th World Series Championship. GO CARDS!!! (I'm hoping we clinch this before game seven because game seven would fall on Halloween, which would be less than ideal.)

6. Since I never got around to blogging about the beautiful wedding I went to last weekend I will show some party pics here. We all had a blast dancing the night away and hanging out with my amazing SLCH friends. I am going to miss these ladies so so much!!

Me, Allie, Maggie, and Michelle the night before the wedding. Too much fun!

 Michelle, Me, Becky, Maggie, Brandy, Emily, Angie, Ashley, and Allie, the whole Children's crew.

Amy, my former life couch, in from Denver for the celebrations. Love her!

7. This past weekend was my last weekend at Children's. My weekend was where I made  my first friends there and where I really started to feel at home. Those girls became my closest friends and we always manage to make our weekend fun, with lots of pot lucks, and celebrations of random things. I've learned so much from those ladies, and though I won't miss working weekends, I will miss the B weekend crew. They had a going away party for me and I gave away all my nursing possessions. Friday is my last day, which is going to be terribly bitter sweet. Hopefully I can hold it together. Thanks Weekend B for my party and all your love and well wishes.

 I willed Ashley my RN badge and presented it to her in a ceremony, complete with a heartfelt speech and all. See it isn't all crying and sadness at our work, but there is a lot of that as well.

Michelle, after receiving my prize possessions of scissors and  my pin light. Both were autographed, so when I make it big she can retire.

8. Packing is all done except the last minute stuff. The plan as it stands is that we drive away from the STL Wednesday morning. Sunday evening is my going away bash and Monday evening is Zach's. I have a lot of anxiety about leaving our house here unattended and not sold. I am not quite sure how the packing process will go and am utterly terrified of the 8-10hr car ride with little Rowan who HATES his car seat. Did I mention the stress level is high around here. I'm requesting lots of prayers for our upcoming week. 

9. In other news from our house our current battle is that Zane thinks he should watch TV all day long, which is not a choice. This is probably due to his lack of toys currently, but it is leading to lots of meltdowns and lots of timeouts from throwing fits. He does have toys and books, but they are all in bins or closets so basically they might as well not exist in Zane's world. I cannot wait to get back to some since of normal. If only I knew when that would be.

10. On that same note, I am beyond tired of having to keep my house spotless all the time, only to have no one come look at it. Usually we will leave at the drop of a hat for a trip to the park, library, or Target. But now every time we leave the house it's thirty minutes of pulling the house together before we leave. I will either be much cleaner/organized or never clean my house again in our next house. One more week!!!!!! AAAAHHHHHHHH Scared!!!!!

Rowan's Eighth Month Update

Today Rowan turns eight months old. Our little man is on the move and blowing through his developmental milestones. He has been crawling for about three months now and his new trick is pulling up on things and starting to cruise. This seems to have come all together too soon for me. He is pulling up on the coffee table, the couch, and today I lost him for a minute, only to find him standing up by the bath tub. He can hold on with one hand and move himself around, like such a big boy. Also this week he has starting getting himself into the downward dog position or puts one foot up under himself to try to stand up from sitting. I'm terrified of how soon this little guy will be walking.

All of these things are made possible by how tiny he is, I'm sure. He remains pretty tall but only weighs a mere seventeen pounds. He has moved up to 9 month clothes, though his 9 months pants, which are long enough, constantly are falling off of him (not a figure of speech, actually falling off of him). His feet seem huge to me, though that might be due to his skinniness. Seeing such a little boy do such big boy things remains entertaining and is probably why I think he is doing things too early. They really are all expected developments, but he looks like such a little baby they don't seem to mach up.

Rowan is still a good eater, but has never made it past the six ounce mark with bottles. He never gets super pissed, like Zane would when he is hungry, but might get slightly fussy from time to time. He has started getting offended by his baby food and being fed like a baby. He really wants to feed himself, but we are still experimenting on what table foods he can actually manage to eat. This month his new favorite was peaches, pancakes, and dehydrated apples, all of which he can feed himself which he loves!

Rowan's personality is starting to come through more each day. Turns out Rowan has a bit of a temper on him and has very little patience. Ro can get a little aggressive if he doesn't get what he wants, when he wants it. For instance the time between putting him in his high chair and when you start to actually feed him is spent with him throwing quite the fit, hitting his hand on this tray. When getting situated to feed him a bottle he frequently starts hitting his little hand on my face because those thirty seconds are way too long to weight. Many of you remember the binki kisses game Zach played with Zane. Zane would love getting the binki from Zach's mouth and snuggling with Zach once he had done it. Zach recently tried this game with Rowan, who did not find it entertaining. He immediately tried ripping his binki out of Zach's mouth, "give me my binki, I'm not playing," I'm pretty sure what he was saying.

 Today in our photo shoot I managed to capture not only his devastated face,

 but also his prostrating himself, giving up on life, moment that happens frequently when I can't pick him up the exact moment he wants me to.

 This month Rowan had his first hair cut, witnessed the Cardinals make it to the World Series, loved swinging at the park, take another plan ride (and did wonderfully), started wearing some adorable shoes, went to his first pumpkin patch, rocked some striped overalls, and his current favorite toys are his tractor, spot the dog, and his play table downstairs. Rowan's little smiling face is beyond adorable and brings us such joy. He has started making a scrunchy nose face, kind of like Zane's at this age, which is too cute. He loves following his brother around and trying to play with him, though it doesn't always work well. Rowan could not look more like his father if he tried. Zane and him look like brother's but they aren't nearly as identical as they were initially. I try to find snippets of me in him somewhere, but so far he is his father's clone, and we love it!!!

It's been a wonderful eight months, that has gone by far too quickly. This next month will bring about lots of changes in his life, that I pray don't disrupt his life too much. I'm sad that he won't remember this house or this city. He will always have the "I was born in St. Louis" card to play and hopefully we can come back to show him around the city he was born in so he can love it as much as we do!

Today's photo shoot was next to impossible. This child does not sit still for long and really wants to be standing up, so here is the best I could do.

 This is Rowan's happy place, standing up by his play table, hitting it, and squealing with glee. This month we have seen a lot less tumbles to the ground as he is now a master of standing.

 This what I saw most of the time, Rowan crawling away from me as fast as he could. Lost of these shots today.

 Ever so briefly distracted by the piece of paper his sticker came off of. This last maybe 45 seconds and then on to the next trip across the room.

Striped Overall Adorableness

As most of you know striped overalls hold a special place in my heart. This was my father's wardrobe when he wasn't teaching and is how I always envision him in my mind. So when I had Zane I bought all sorts of miniature striped overalls to dress him up in. There is nothing cuter than a little boy in striped overalls. So even though we have all seen these overalls before, everyone deserves their own striped overall blog post. This is Rowan's, I'm sure there will be more to come. I mean I have a pair in pretty much every size. 

Today's overalls are the Oshkosh version. They made their first appearance on a much chubbier, much younger, baby Zane, back in November 2010.

Today Rowan, older, but quite a bit littler, got to rock these big boy overalls. It was beyond adorable, definitely made cuter by Zane trying to be part of the photo shoot. Here are the many faces of Rowan!

Happy Rowan

 Serious face Rowan

 Slightly ornery Rowan 

 hungover Rowan

 And there is nothing cuter than a little tiny bottom in a pair of baggy overalls. I could not get enough of this all day!

 And then Zane got in on the action. He tried to get Rowan to wear his cowboy hat, to no avail. Then he wanted "brother pictures" (I have trained him well). We have yet to master brother pictures, but here are the rather adorable results.

 This is absolutely priceless. Zane is a super serious, shirtless cowboy, while Rowan is oblivious to society, playing with his toes.

And that was today's overall adorableness. I'm sure there is lots more overall cuteness to come in our house!

Ten on Tuesday

1. Friday was Zane's yearly cardiology appointment. I had high hopes for him handling it well. He did great last year, so I did not foresee his screaming bloody murder the entire time.. It was less than ideal, but we were the first patient of the day so things went rather quickly. Dr. Murphy was very sad to hear that we were leaving. However, the cardiologist at OU Children's was trained at St. Louis Children's so he was happy to send little Zane his way. Also, in 2015 a doctor that I know from him working his way through the floors as an intern/resident will be finishing his Cardiology Fellowship and heading to OU Children's as well, so I we will probably end up with a friend of mine any way. It all worked out well, one less stress in my life.

 The fish tank in the waiting room was lots of fun.

Then things got real and Zane was NOT excited. He sat in this position in various chairs in the waiting room. We were the only ones in there so it had zero effect on Zach and I.

2. We didn't get to have a day of fun with Zane after his appointment, as we had had planed for his last appointment before he got sick, but we did go get breakfast afterwards and ate lunch outside with him before Zach and I headed off on our romantic weekend. I'm pretty sure there was ice cream celebrations with Grandma while we were gone as well. It feels like a life time ago that we were
at that office so often, but really it's only Zane's third heart birthday is at the end of the month.

There were some sad questions asked this year such as "Mamma is my heart brokenn?" And after I told him that the doctors were going to use a "magic wand" to look at his heart he said, "it make my strip disappear?" Both gut wrenching, and brought tears to my eyes, but he has no idea that he is different.

3. Friday afternoon Zach and I headed to Hermann, MO for my friend Brandy's wedding weekend celebrations. This was doubling as a romantic getaway for us as well. I think it's the first time we have both spent the night away from our kids since we became parents. We stayed at Stonehill Overlook B&B with the Wamsers and had a wonderful time. The weekend really deserves a post of it's own, but here are Zach and I all dressed up for the wedding.

4. Zane desperately wants to be doing Halloween things and decorating our house with all our Halloween decorations. I am so sad that our house selling/moving is taking place during Zane's absolute favorite time of year. Mom let him visit our Halloween decorations while we were gone and yesterday we painted two little pumpkins. Zane, being a huge Cardinals fan, painted his all red then proceeded to paint over the blue face I had painted on my pumpkin to make mine all blue. FYI, painting is not an activity I would recommend if you are trying to keep your house spotless.

Zane, pre terrible hair cut.

Ro, pretty bored with the hole thing.

5. I tried out some of the new setting, tips, and tricks I learned at my camera glass last week, with some mixed results. I thought I was doing pretty good until I sat down to look at the past couple days of pictures. They aren't terrible, but definitely room for improvement. I will keep trying, good things I have some adorable little people to constantly take pictures of.

 These two were from last week when I was playing with it. The color isn't quit right, but getting there.

 Ro trying to stand up, not cool buddy.

I think this one turned out pretty good, my other snot nosed son with his beloved blanket!

6. Today was rainy and with our current lack of available toys Zane was got pretty stir crazy. After getting the boys dressed at different times this morning I realized that I had dressed them alike, accidentally. The result was some adorable photo ops while we struggle to find things to do in Zane's room. Later in the day, when we went to the library, I realized that I too had on brown pants and a red shirt. I'm sure we looked really awesome.

Yes I cut Zane's hair yesterday, no it isn't my best work. Also, this is Zane's new face, sticking his lips out I think to be a tough guy, I'm not a fan.

7. During our hour of trying desperately to find things to do we discovered that Rowan can ride Spot now and loves him. Zane is less sure that Rowan should get to play with "his dog," but Zane can't ride him without his knees hitting the ground so it is definitely time to pass it down. The reality of all of his toys eventually becoming Rowan's is not sitting well with Zane. Such is life.

 If you can't tell this little boy isn't feeling his best. He has a runny nose, an occasional low grade temp, and is very sleepy. No ear infections, but definitely not quite himself. He is trying to power through it. 

As much as Zane isn't excited about his toys becoming Rowan's, Rowan isn't excited about sharing them with Zane either. He was having none of Zane trying to ride Spot with him. Fun times ahead at our house!

8. The moving/packing/house selling remains the same. I did a walk through the house again today, trying to find things I could pack. I managed to rummage up two boxes full, but for the most part we are all packed except the things we need to survive and keep our house clean. There are random things that could be packed but that we are leaving to keep the place decorated, if only people wanted to look at it. I do find it odd that I have no idea where I will be unpacking these boxes, unlike all our previous moves.

9. Up until today the weather here has been very nice and very fall like. This means jackets and long pants, and lots of trips to the park. I never took Zane to the park when he was a baby, because, well I didn't think there were things for him to do. I was obviously wrong, because Rowan loves the park. He stands up next to things and hits them, tries to cruise, sits on the slides, and of course swings with brother. So stinking cute and so much fun for everyone. The other parents aren't a fan of Zane though, because he knows how to climb on everything and I let him slide down the big fireman poles that everyone else is trying to keep their kids off of. My advice to them is, teach your kid how to slide down the fireman pole then you don't have to yell at your kids at the park!

10. Zane absolutely has fallen in love with the library which does my heart good. We go about once a week to switch out our books and usually get a movie as well. We spend lots of time, everyday, reading books and letting his imagination wander into different stories. Here are our current favorites that we have found from the library: Creepy Carrots, Whopper Cake, One Dark Night, Happy Halloween Stinky Face, and The Bear Snores On. Usually The movies are often a bust, with Zane not liking them, but this weeks pick of Rio he thoroughly enjoyed. I guess we did find Wreck It Ralph there as well, which is Zane current favorite movie, which had to be purchased.