Aviation Museum

We took our second field trip with Lucy's playschool group.  This one was slightly less planned and more random.  We were going to go strawberry picking, but there was a 50% chance of thunderstorms, and for a half hour drive, we didn't really like those odds.  It was my week to plan so I was just going to come up with a different book and craft, but then Charlie spent a night/day in the hospital (more on that later), and I was left with no time to come up with something.  Someone suggested the aviation museum and away we went.

It was a pretty cool place-- small enough to not be overwhelming.  The kids could run around without you fearing they would just keep running until you lost track of them.  But they had plenty of neat things to do and see.  Here is Lucy and her friend L driving an airplane.  The steering wheel made the rudder and the flaps move.

They had a bunch of cute airplane toys to play on outside.  L and B are looking less than thrilled though.

 Charlie hanging out in his usual fashion.

 Lucy and B liked hanging out back here, but were reluctant to pop their heads out for me.

 And then, wouldn't you know it, Amelia Earhart came up, dressed in her finest.

 (They had a whole section of dress up pilot clothes with varying sizes.  They also had flight simulators, stamping centers, plane puzzles, and a ton of books on airplanes.)

So, Charlie in the hospital.  On Thursday, he had his one year check up.  I noticed he had a tiny little cold.  It  got worse throughout the weekend, but not horrible.  On Saturday, he kept having more and more trouble breathing.  He wouldn't eat until he was absolutely starving and then only for a few seconds.  Same thing with sleeping.  Then he started grunting with every breath and we noticed he was the skin sucking in at his ribs-- all not good signs.  I called the exchange line at our pediatrician and with no hesitation she said get to the ER.  Charlie and I headed off.  I was expecting a long wait on a Saturday night, but we were brought back almost immediately when they saw him.  They gave him a steroid and lots of breathing treatments, took a chest X-ray, put in an IV which took 3 tries (poor guy!).  They decided to admit him to the hospital so they could keep an eye on his breathing.  When things finally started to calm down, a pediatrician came in and told me his blood sugar had gone up dramatically and now they were equally concerned about that and his breathing.  If his blood sugar kept going up, he said, he might go into a coma so we had to watch and make sure he wasn't getting lethargic.  At this point, it was 4am and we had been up all night.  We were already lethargic!  We were finally shown to our room at 4:30am.  Charlie magically fell asleep in a strange place, and while his machine bing-bonged continuously, I someone managed so sleep on the chair-that-I-couldn't-figure-out-how-to-turn-into-a-bed for exactly one hour.  They kept us there the whole next day to make sure everything was okay.  His breathing got better, his blood sugar went down (they think it was the steroid and the stress that made it go up), and he lit up when James and Lucy came in.  I knew he was feeling better when he started a one-man mission to chew the IV off his hand.  They released us at 9pm and we promptly went home and slept and slept and slept.

We had a little chat with the kids about how 3 ER visits in 2 years is quite enough, thank you.  The staff in the pediatric ER recognizes us now.  The same doctor has seen all three emergencies.  Coincidentally, this doctor studied under Dr. Magenis (who co-discovered Smith-Magenis Syndrome). Small world!  She said she is a sweet little old lady who makes all of her students taste the infant formulas that babies have to take when they have genetic issues like PKU, so that they will have compassion on the parents and kids they are treating.  Sounds like someone I could get along with!

Anyway, Charlie's breathing is much better now.  No more wheezing.  In fact, I caught him eating his "Asthma Action Plan," which had somehow fallen off the table and fallen prey to Charlie's love of paper.  

Strawberry picking

We really love pick-your-own farms, as you may have noticed.  You can probably just expect more and more pictures of us picking our own fruits and vegetables because we just enjoy it so much.  Hopefully someday the pictures will be taken in our own backyard.

But for now, here is another Butler's Orchard excursion:

 Lucy hauled the water bottle around for us.

 She actually put some in the basket!

After we finished picking, we had a little picnic near the farm store.  

 Both kids thought this was about the best thing ever.

 And here's one last picture.  Lucy telling Charlie a secret :-)

Charlie is 1!

 After a week full of graduation festivities, we had yet another celebration for Charlie's first birthday.  Here's the birthday man himself.

 See that little tooth on top?  He has three of them now, and is working on a fourth.  And watch out, people, he know how to use them.

 We decided to have a quiet celebration at home, being exhausted from the week.  It was nice.  First we opened presents from the grandparents.

A bouncer!  Get ready, here come 100 pictures of him in this thing because he was being so darn cute.

 

 "Okay, I'm done."

Lucy thought Charlie jumping was hysterical and begs me to put him in there everyday.  I have to keep a close eye out though, because Lucy would really like to think the bouncer is a swing and that Charlie would really like to be pushed.

Time out from the birthday festivities and check out this sweet girl:

 Here is the artist herself showing pieces from her latest collection.

Back to the birthday: here is Charlie enthralled with another gift.  This little mat is filled with water so when you push on it, the little fish move around.  Charlie really likes it, but wishes he could bite those fish.

Both sides of grandparents remembered Lucy in the gift-giving, and she scored some bubbles and stickers.

And here we are with the cupcakes.  Sadly, the birthday boy could not have any.  We're proceeding very cautiously with introducing foods with Charlie as he seems to have some digestive issues (which is consistent with what other parents of children with his syndrome find).  He's mostly still eating pureed food at this point so he had some celebratory pears and raspberries.  One day I gave him diced peaches instead of pureed and he woke up at 4am and cried for an hour.  I tried it again three days later and the same exact thing happened.  Maybe you can have cupcakes next year, Charlie!

Graduation!

Last week was a great week.  James graduated and Charlie had his first birthday.  More on Charlie's birthday later.  For now, here are pictures for all of the graduation festivities.

Every year the Institute holds a Graduation Ball.  It's in a beautiful reception hall at the Franciscan Monastery Gardens.  The master's students who have just completed their first year of studies host it (set up, cook, MC, etc) for the students who are graduating (and everyone else who comes).  I will forever remember my first Institute Ball as the time I thought, "Uh oh, this baby is coming early!"  I was 8 months pregnant with Charlie and having contractions after having just baked 6 apple tarts and 3 large cheesecakes.  Lesson learned: ask for help!

Anyway, that meant this year, all I had to do was show up and look nice.  And make sure the rest of people in my care looked nice too.  This is actually no small feat.

Disclaimer: I had a lot of help with the photos in this post.  Our friend Carly and the professional photographer at graduation filled in where my camera was lacking.

 Here is a series of Lucy on the dance floor.  There was a live swing band.  Music, a dance floor, and low tables with food on them.  That's all Lucy really needs.

Then something great happened.  Charlie fell asleep on someone else's shoulder and she was willing to continue holding him.  Lucy was not crying, whining or otherwise in need.  James and I got to dance to two whole songs!

It was great.  After the second song, I just had a feeling that somewhere someone was getting into mischief.  And sure enough, we found Lucy just outside the hall near a water fountain.  She had found a cup and was repeatedly filling it up at the water fountain and throwing it in the air.  Half of her dress was completely soaked.  Fortunately, it had multiple layers so she couldn't even feel it.  We laughed pretty hard.

We headed to the Basilica, or the BIIIIIIG church as Lucy calls it, the next day for the official graduation.

Here is James after he was hooded, shaking the Archbishop's hand.  It was quite a coordinated dance: walk across to the Archbishop, bend down and get hood shaken over your head, stand up, shake his hand...

... and then both look at the camera and smile!

Hey, did I mention he graduated Magna Cum Laude??  We're pretty proud.

And here they all are!

As they were up there while everyone was taking pictures, Lucy, Charlie and I (who had just sat through a long mass and ceremony during nap time) and came up too.  Lucy got very excited and started jumping around and laughing hysterically.  All of the graduates couldn't help but laugh at her too.

A pretty nice picture, considering the lack of nap!

That evening there was a party to continue the celebration.  It was so nice to meet lots of classmate's parents (or see them again).  There was, of course, a bonfire in the back with people playing instruments.  Lucy again enjoyed the low tables containing lots of chocolate and other goodies.

Because James is going on to the PhD, his graduation from the Master's sometimes seemed like just a pit-stop, not a big deal considering the work ahead of u.  But then we started thinking about all of the things that have changed in the past two years-- all the things both of us have learned, Lucy has grown so much, and even a whole person--and not just any person, but our sweet Charlie-- joined our family during that time.  And then we celebrated for all we were worth!