Puppies!!

Yesterday we went to Geyer German Shepherds to visit with the owner and see the facilities and dogs. I've been trolling her website for almost 3 years and have liked what I've seen, so I called her up and asked if we could go visit. Granted I did this back in June when her schedule was hectic enough she told me to call back in August when she had some free time, haha. She has some beautiful shepherds and all of them were quite friendly with really good temperaments. We were lucky enonough to play with some very sleepy 4 week old pups. Christopher was very good the whole time, in fact if we hadn't been holding him you would have hardly known he was there. We even got him to give one of the puppies a kiss. I had fun and enjoyed getting to see so many nice shepherds.

When we got home we spent some time outside. Christopher managed to get his first wasp sting. He thought it was a bug and picked it up, quickly dropping it when it stung him. It didn't swell too bad or seem to cause him too much trouble... although he acted a little off the rest of the evening. This morning all you can see is a little red dot on his thumb where it got him.

A little bit of Chris.

Tuesday we went to the fair. We met my parents there and listened to Chicago, they were pretty good and I'm sure Adam enjoyed the drum solo! We got there and went through the animal barns first, the pigs were being herded to the show ring so were walking right past Christopher, pretty much at his level... his little eyes were wide with wonder and I hardly got a word out of him he was taking so much in. He was pretty much in the same quiet, wide eyed state in the cow barn too, but once we got the the chickens and bunnies he was smiling and pointing... "Birdie, bunny!!" It was cute, he even got to have a bunny in his lap. He's very good at patting the fuzzy animals nicely as we practice with Kiro kitty at home. He was in heaven. Here's a picture of Adam and Chris at the concert.

Lately Chris has taken to running around the house with my baseball cap on. Usually backwards, but occasionally with it facing forward, completely covering his face. He of course can't see like this, but it's very fun for him and he giggles and runs (slowly, almost in place,) every time he does it. I thought I would share a goofy picture of him with my hat on. He likes to get very close to the camera right now for some reason.

This last photo is an interesting one. Christopher was being very quiet in the living room. I was washing dishes I think and so I decided to check on him. When I looked over the couch to see him sitting on the floor I discovered he was "hungry" and since mommy was taking to long to feed him he took it upon himself to have a snack.

That's right, he ate his nerf ball. I don't actually think he swallowed any, he was just biting the pieces off and setting them on the floor. By the way, that foamy stuff feels gross when it's all covered in slobber.

The little Mr.

Christopher is getting so big. He's now just shy of a year and a half. He's got a great personality and manages to amaze us everyday in some small way or another. Just this morning when I picked him up out of the crib he pointed at a book and said "Moo!" (It was his Mr. Brown can Moo! book.) When he looks out the window across the street he points at the neighbors house and says, "Katie,"(he's next door playing with her right now) he knows which house is hers. He's up to a 3 word sentence on occasion, is signing and saying at the same time and even counted to 3 last week without prompting... although that is a wonder yet to be repeated.

He got to go swimming in a big people pool for the first time on the 11th, and he took to it like a pro. He loved being able to float and kick and not touch the bottom ( I didn't have a floaty for him so had my hands on him the whole time.) Christopher didn't want to get out of the pool at all, he kept trying to climb back in no matter how many times I thwarted his efforts. I'm encouraged to maybe get mommy/kiddo swim lessons now that I know he enjoys the water so much, I put it off as I wasn't sure how he would react to so much water.

Another great development, Christopher and Maddie (the dog.) Christopher is now able to be out in the yard playing, with the dog in the yard at the same time. She is no longer so out of her mind excited that she knocks him down when he's out there or running up to him so fast that he gets scared. In fact he will take her toy from her (she's gentle and doesn't mind,) and throw it in his pool, when she comes and gets it and lays down again to chew on it, he'll get out of the pool and start the whole cycle over again, it's very cute. So they are playing together and so far all is well. I'm no longer nervous about their interaction, I never worried that she would bite him but I was a little concerned with how over exuberant she gets when playing. She did step on him once and had him screaming bloody murder, more because he was scared then because he was injured.

He still has only 4 teeth, but I'm sure someday more will pop through. He still in 12 month clothing, which is fine... I get more use out of what I have. It's nice not going through clothes like crazy. He eats everything you put on his plate and has a very healthy appetite. He has a well check coming up and I'll be able to tell you exactly how much he's grown. We're both just so proud of him and he truly is our little star.

A health report.

Well, I went to the gastroenterologist on Monday and he scheduled me for a scope the next morning. Why did I go to the gastroenterologist you ask. For the past 5 months or so I've felt like I have a ball in my chest (not every day though, every 4-5 days) when I have this feeling my saliva would get very sticky and if you touched it it would do the mozzarella cheese thing (stringy) wierd, it would be hard to swallow and I wouldn't have any appetite... I dealt with it. Each episode would last about 12 hours, I'd be uncomfortable but could live with it. Well the last month or two it had become so uncomfortable I couldn't sleep through it anymore and dealing with this issue and hives was bringing me to the breaking point. So I went to see the gastroenterologist.

When you get a scope done, they give you some pretty heavy medication to sedate you during the process... meaning you can't drive home and you shouldn't use the kitchen or other potentially dangerous items and you most certainly should not be left to care for a very active 17 month old all alone. Adam, my hero... picked up an emergency flight home Monday night so he could watch the little mister and Suzy, bless her heart came and picked me up to take me for the procedure (at 7 in the morning) and drove me home. The Dr. found that I have candida esophagitis... aka a yeast infection in my esophagus. So I'm on meds for 2 weeks and it should hopefully clear up.

On a hive note: I have chronic idiopathic urticaria and so will just have to live with them until they decide to go away. I'm taking a tiny pill 3 times a day to keep the flare ups down. The medicine does not cure hives just helps make me comfortable. I have a couple of Dr.'s yet to see but my allergist is feeling very firm in her diagnosis. I'll let you know more when I do, however it will probably be very similar news.

On a side note. Please keep my grandmother in your thoughts, she's going in to have a completely blocked artery cleared out and we are all very worried about her. It would be much appreciated.

A long week.

So, on the morning of the 19th I left for Cheerleadership Camp. It was going to be 7 long days and a lot of work. I'd spent the previous months coming up with a lesson plan for the class I would teach on Tuesday (4 times.) I'd packed for the hot weather and lack of air conditioning I would endure while staying at the dorms at Central and I had prepared myself as much as I could to be bombarded by 250+ cheerleaders.

Saturday and Sunday was more arts and crafts than any one person needs to cram in a day. We made door signs so the squads would know which rooms were theirs to stay in, we made signs to welcome the kids to camp, we made schedules and rules to paste anywhere and everywhere the girls would be to try and give them some sense of direction. Scissors, glue, glitter and tape invaded my dreams.

Monday, they arrived. I had two squads, 28 girls in total that I would be "dorm mom" too. I must say I was lucky, I had two great squads. These were girls that wanted to get as much as they could out of camp both from leadership staff (me) and NCA staff. These girls were kind hearted and genuine. I had it easy and although I tried to learn all thier names in the 4.5 days I was with them I only learned about 23 out of the 28.

My Grandview Girls

My Todd Beamer Girls

It was a good week. I think I did ok being away from Christopher and Adam, there were a couple of moments where I was really down and even cried but the girls I had were quick to cheer me up and keep me busy so I didn't have much time to think of missing home. I must say I grew quite attatched and hope that I made camp fun for them. There were tears when we said goodbye so I'm pretty sure I was a good "dorm mommy." I'm looking forward to next year.

I must say that while I was gone, Adam did a great job. He was teaching Christopher the whole time I was gone and I came home to lots of new voacbulary spewing from his little mouth. Adam also managed to clean the house and keep it that way. Although in the few days I've been home I've managed to make a complete mess of it again. Partly because I have a bad habit of not cleaning up right away and trying to do to many things at once, never actually finishing any chore I start, and also because once I got home.... Adam stopped cleaning too. Soooooo, needless to say I've got chores to do.

Beep Beep, Beep

Rachel is off leading and teaching at a cheerleader camp so I'm a single parent for the week. After one day so far so good, as expected.

This morning I woke up, did the morning routine and then the beeping started. It sounded random and was REALLY quite. I immediately thought it was one an Annoy-a-tron due to the sadistic nature of my wife and friends! Took about 15 minutes to locate the culprit. Turns out I was being driven mad by a digital thermometer that got wet when I was washing dishes.

Good job Buddy!!

Christopher is a regular electronic expert. He can make my computer do things I didn't know it could, rate my Tivo shows, eject dvd's from my computer... and take the remote apart. Yup, you read it right. Here he was being all cute and quiet this morning and when I took a look to see what he was up to he had disassembled the TV remote.

From Christopher M...

Christopher has been busy. He's been working on his 4th tooth for a couple of weeks now. It just doesn't want to pop through and most days he's been a little bit whiny about it. Some more than others. One pitfall of new teeth is the fact that he's not used to them being in his mouth and so when he toppled from his box the other day he gave himself a big fat bloody lip. I must say, lips bleed a lot! A mesh feeder and some ice was our savior, keeping the swelling down and helping with the pain.

The little guy is gaining vocabulary like crazy, he's repeating everything and signing well. Most days he'll use his signs instead of crying for what he wants, sometimes though he just feels like letting me know he's there. Like right now, as he's woken up from his nap and is screaming at me to come get him.