This was one of those days that just started out like crap. For the past few nights, Trevor has been up at all random hours. The night before, it was midnight, 2-something and then up for good at 4:30ish. Last night was kind of the same thing, but he was up at 5:30 for the day. The dog has had something going on with his ear and in the middle of the night, he will wake up and FLAP FLAP FLAP. FLAP FLAP FLAP. It is so annoying, it wakes up Trevor too.

It was the kind of day where everything I touched broke, everything I planned failed, every action garnered criticism, I just wanted to crawl in bed and hide for a day. The boys were having that kind of day too, so much crying!!

Brendan had speech therapy again today. He really REALLY did not want carrots on his hands.

Trevor was just an emotional little wreck all morning and he would NOT take a nap, even though his eyelids were so heavy and his head would nod. Take him to his room and he was wide awake and ready to screeeeam. He did a lot of screaming until after lunch, I put him in the stroller and did 50 laps of the patio.
He woke up in a better mood, but then he was just ready to push everyone’s buttons, getting in to things he knows he should not touch.

Brendan got to be a lot happier once the food torture was over. He likes to “stand” up now.

And he is happy in the jungle too

“He’s asleep, quick – get me a Sharpie”

Attack!

Photobomb!

This is how that happens

Silly Trevor

I could say that I was in a horrible mood and cried until I held Brendan and saw his bright eyed smile looking up at me and then it all went away and the room filled with rainbows and it would be very cheesy. But the truth is, Brendan’s smiles do remind you that sometimes your situation is beyond your control, the lack of control causes frustration and stress, and the only thing you can change is your attitude.
Bill and I both were determined to put the dark cloud aside for a while and get done some things that were bothering us like the mess in the house. I vacuumed with one hand holding Trevor in the other. We cleaned up some old piles of papers and “stuff”. Bill scoured bathrooms.
At the end of it all, we all felt better and had a good evening as a whole family.

I always write giant blog posts for the weekends when readers are scarce and comments are even more rare. But taking pictures of all the chaos and writing about it is always good therapy, even if it is just for me to read back later.

To finish the post, here is the proof that Trevor is going to bankrupt us with his appetite. He is a bottomless pit! He will even lick his tray when he is done sometimes. These pictures are all from dinner, he ate every bite pictured.

Course #1 – cantaloupe

Course #2 – green beans

Course #3 – Chicken

Course #4 – Mac and Cheese (Trevor’s adventures back in to the world of dairy seem to be going OK so far)

He decided fork and bowl were a no go and he wanted to pick them up himself

(not staged) He did go back and get the noodles he dropped

Still seemed hungry after all that!

Course #5 – 4oz bottle of formula, but to be fair, he did save an ounce and a half to use at bedtime for his “top off”

We can not even begin to imagine the snow dump on the east coast and we hope all our friends and family stay warm and safe. We are still running our air conditioning. Snow would be the last thing we would need. Scraping ice off cars is a task I will never miss.
I keep telling Aunt Letty that Gramma’s apartment is vacant right now, and it is nice and warm and dry!

We had a special event to attend today and a reason to get out of the house for something “social”. The hospital has a program called CHIEF which stands for Complex Congenital Heart Infant Evaluation and Follow-Up Program and it is all about a network of support and resources for medically fragile kids leaving the hospital after treatment. Every year they hold a graduation ceremony for all of the children that have successfully gone home. So Brendan got to go have a little recognition!
It is a big PR event for the hospital and several of the local news stations were there. (I have yet to hear or see anything about whether or not Brendan made it on TV). I did do a brief interview with one reporter, but I don’t think she liked my answers enough to use anything in their news feature. She wanted warm fuzzy stories about the hospital and I am just not a fuzzy person. I was pretty uncomfortable with all of the cameras, we left so fast this morning, I didn’t even get to really comb my hair.

Brendan got to ride in the new van again, this time in his big boy car seat (first time!).

Trevor goes a lot of places in the car, it is just another day for him.

Brendan obviously was comfortable!

The event was in the third floor garden, and it was set up nice. Brendan’s old neighbor-friend Violet’s mom gave a nice speech about their journey.

Brendan got a spiffy sparkly hat with a white graduation tassel on it, it says “Chief 2012 Grad”

Trevor was funny, he chewed on his feet most of the time. We stood for a group photo with all the other families and Trevor just had one foot in each hand, legs spread wide. One sock on, one sock in his mouth. Classy Trevor!!

He didn’t have a bad morning though, he got to eat raspberry crepes and bagel sandwiches and just be along for the ride.

Loading up the car to go home, Trevor is in love with his mirror. (the kind that mounts on the headrest so I can see him in his rear facing seat)

After giving himself a few kisses, he buckled in. He talked enthusiastically to his reflection the whole way home.

Brendan got a shiny heart balloon too.

We had a nice time overall and got to catch up with a lot of good people that have made a large impact on Brendan’s life. Now I will just always wonder when more pictures of Brendan and my family will crop up!

Tonight to get Trevor out of the house while Brendan tried to get to sleep, Bill took the stroller and walked Trevor to the mailbox. After we had just talked about baby swings in parks, Bill decided to stop by the park and see what Trevor thought of them. I think he liked it!

It is kind of nice when there is not much to write about, just a lot of normal day. Brendan is on day 3/10 of his antibiotics and it is bothering his tummy just a bit, we expect it will get worse. Although we hate to put him through more than one thing at a time, we did do a small reduction in his other meds as well. He can’t keep waiting to keep weaning.
He sprinted for 6 hours today and did very well with that too.

I hate to tell Brendan, but he is really too big for his bouncy chair. It will be sad to see it go.

He used to disappear in to the seat, there are lots of cute pictures of the boys in these chairs!

He will just move on to practicing his driving so he will be ready to borrow the car.

Trevor is noticing that now that he eats good things like meat, the dogs tend to hang around more during dinner time.

He also figured out all by himself that he can get rid of his dinner when he is full.

Now he has a friend

Brendan finds the whole thing hilarious, now he knows what to do when the speech therapist tries to put food on his tray.

It was another grocery shopping day today and Trevor did a good job at the store. We picked up a few new things for him to try over the next few days.